


Somewhere Between Us

by Bbaegi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Street Racing, they may or may not be doomed, they're trying their best to be healthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:14:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29658102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bbaegi/pseuds/Bbaegi
Summary: Maybe Baekhyun didn't leave. Maybe Chanyeol just let him go. Maybe this time, they could try to live each other without leaving behind ashes on dark highways.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79
Collections: Swords and Hearts 2020





	Somewhere Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> **Code:** SAH312  
>  **Prompt:** Long drives through the raw, never-ending highways, the soaring wind and the music bumping through their car. They're each other's fire - the kind that burns and hurts, and the kind that lights up the dark.  
>  **Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction and none of the characters are owned by Swords and Hearts.  
> **  
>  All creative rights and ownership of this particular work of fiction lie with the respective authors. 
> 
> **Author's Note:** Dear Mods, thank you for putting up with my chaos. Dear tlist, thank you for always being so kind and supporting to me. Dear brain, why would you make this so hard for me?
> 
> Dear you. As I've told you two lifetimes ago, we're not two characters inside of my head. But if we were, maybe it would go a little like this. (This is far, far from being us though, don't worry. I could never write us.)

Smoke chased a heavy beat around the street, never fast enough to catch up before the sound grew heavier, lighter, volatile, then reckless again.

People stood together in small and bigger groups all around, letting their body ripple to the rhythm coming from one of the cars parked behind them. The streets were relatively quiet, there was no one but the people who stood there with the same purpose, waiting for things to heat up.

Then and there, laughter bounced up to step down on the roof of a car but never on Chanyeol’s car.

He turned around, raising his gaze to the lifeless sky for a moment, until he felt the scent of tobacco trying to make its way into his breath.

"Whoever that person is, I already despise them for being so late," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.

Sehun merely shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the cool September wind nudging his body around.

"I swear it’s like you have an special immune system against all the happiness in this place," was his preferred reply. It spiked Chanyeol even more.

"I would be happy if the person I’m supposed to race was actually here for me to _race_ them," he chose to reply, crossing his arms, one hand holding onto his other elbow as he looked around.

He could see it, the happiness Sehun was talking about. Most of their friends were here, standing around, discussing way too many different topics for Chanyeol to even attempt leaning an ear into any of them. But these people weren’t annoyed only because they were here for a show as the audience, they couldn’t care about the lateness of its production. Or maybe they were mostly here to hang out and not even really watch a race. Chanyeol didn’t know, he hadn’t attended a single race merely to watch it. In way too long. In a stretch of time he’d stopped measuring a while ago.

"Oh, there he is," Jongdae said and Chanyeol furrowed his eyebrows at the assumption of the person being a man.

Before he could make a comment on it, his ears focused on the low growling of a car parting the sea of people behind them. Chanyeol raised an eyebrow at the black armor driving forth slower than a predator amidst high trees and dry skies. The bodywork didn’t shine too much under the lights around them, the matte black of it was dimmed but captivated the attention all around him still. Chanyeol let his gaze travel to the the touches of color around the car, the warm copper on the car’s bumper and the back of the sideview mirrors. This Nissan GT-R was one of the prettiest, slickest cars Chanyeol had ever seen in an opponent.

And it was one of the cars Chanyeol had always wanted to have, had looked around for every where only to give up when he couldn’t find it at an appropriate price. He wasn’t reckless enough to waste money on his biggest dream if he knew he could find it for a less noxious cost.

The car approached them slow, the sharpness of its design clear under the headlights of the cars parked around, as if even the surrounding cars couldn’t take their eyes off it. Windows tainted, headlights pure, skin pristine as it looked right into Chanyeol, almost quiet, entirely still next to Chanyeol’s own car, waiting there in the quiet patience of a hunter. His own white Mustang looked bright next to it, posed there in its spotless glory.

Chanyeol scoffed and turned to Sehun, getting his insistent gaze in return. Ignoring it, he pinched two fingers around the cigarette Jongdae was holding and took it from him just as Jongdae was bringing it up to his mouth.

He kissed the poison of it, breathed it in, gave the stick back to Sehun and breathed out in a scribble of smoke.

"You’re trying to quit smoking," Sehun scolded him, taking the cigarette back.

"Some things are hard to get rid of," Chanyeol replied before turning around just to see everyone admiring the car, the conversations having quietened as the focus shifted to his opponent.

Chanyeol didn’t recognize the car. Sehun had told him tonight’s opponent was unknown to him as well and from the look of it, the lack of cheer from everyone around, nobody knew who this person was.

Chanyeol didn’t need to know. All that mattered was that not only was this person late to a race but they also came here with a car Chanyeol would almost die for, if he didn’t have the incredible critical thinking that he thought he had.

Stepping to his car, Chanyeol didn’t even try and peek at the driver through the windows. He knew the taint would prevent him from seeing anything and he was already seething, he didn’t need a failure to worsen his mood. Instead, he smiled at the people around as they started cheering from him, almost every single one of them raising a can or a bottle of beer to him.

Once he settled down, he closed the door behind him, fastened his seat belt, and looked at his opponent as he heard him step on the gaz and pull a roar out of his engine. Chanyeol started the car, eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t like not knowing who he was racing. Some racers were nasty, Chanyeol had almost lost a piece of his car to the greed and rage of an opponent more than once.

A young woman stepped out between the two cars, her long, flowery dress waving around her chunky shoes with the wind. Outside, Chanyeol could hear the cheers of everyone around him. He looked at the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of Jongdae standing with a bunch of their other friends. Looking away, he jammed his finger against the dashboard, turning the radio on and letting it connect to his phone. A heavy bass instantly started playing and Chanyeol wrapped a hand around the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift as he rolled his shoulders and his neck to stretch up a bit.

He stepped on the gas, letting his car roar into competition and earning an excited wave of Sehun’s arms in the rearview mirror. The other racer replied with a louder sound and a smile enlivened Chanyeol’s mouth, slanting it the slightest bit. His heart jumped into a race first, adrenaline already starting to bubble in his body, enflamed by the sound of his opponent’s tires burning on the ground as he put on a show for the audience.

He kept his gaze fixated on the pretty woman in front of them and as soon as she dropped her arms and signaled the start of the race, Chanyeol threw his car forward, smoke and heavy music left behind as he flew forward.

Instantly, he glanced at the side mirror and grinned when he saw his opponent’s car growing bigger on the reflection. Just when he started seeing the car at the corner of his eye, he stamped on the gas pedal and jumped the car forward, taking a left turn into another deserted street. He wasn’t far enough, his opponent was still stuck to the rear of his car, he could see it in the mirror.

Another turn, this time the street wasn’t as deserted, a lone car was trudging forward slowly, Chanyeol glared at his mirrors, then zigzagged to the left and then the right again to overtake the car. His opponent was catching up, the heavy sound of the music bouncing all over the walls of his car loud enough to hide the growl of his engine. He caught up to Chanyeol, driving right by his side.

Chanyeol turned his head to the right, glancing at him, then threw his car forward again. He saw, a few meter away, cars parked at a crossroads, friends and racing lovers blocking the traffic and cars honking their anger at them as the lights turned green but nobody could move. Their two cars whizzed past the red lights and Chanyeol felt himself laugh more than he heard himself, mouth open, then teeth digging into his lower lip, life surging through his veins when he saw his opponent move left and right behind him as if he couldn’t decide from which side he wanted to overtake Chanyeol, teasing him.

When the car chose to stay right behind him, Chanyeol pressed on the break slightly, teasing the other right back. However, it gave an opening to the other and the car threw itself to the right, driving along Chanyeol. They took a right turn, Chanyeol’s body leaning along the car, controlled by the pace and the gravity he was racing against.

A small game immersed between them for a few seconds as they drove side by side, Chanyeol’s car stepping forward only to be caught up as the other car lurched forward before Chanyeol gained the pace again.

His fingers were tight around the steering wheel. This wasn’t an easy race. Chanyeol hadn’t had a _not easy_ race in so long. It was both exhilarated him and annoyed him, and then that last emotion gained the crown when his opponent fused forward and left Chanyeol behind by only two meters. It was enough for Chanyeol to smash his foot against the gas and try to catch up.

They were on the main street now. At 4AM, there was no one around but still a few cars. Chanyeol didn’t like racing with people around, didn’t like the possibility of hurting someone who had nothing to do with their reckless little games. He slowed down a little and was almost relieved to see his opponent do the same.

Another crossroads, red lights, empty white lines, two cars rushing against each other, rising to each other, chasing one another, taking turns in the leading but never holding each other at a comfortable distance.

The music changed. A heavier bass, a curse word. Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrowed. This wasn’t an easy race. His races were all easy. His opponents were all beaten. This one was trying too hard to win. Were they even trying, actually? This seemed too easy to them.

There wasn’t much left. They would soon arrive at their destination. He knew everyone was already waiting there. Chanyeol maneuvered until he could overtake the other at a turn, tires complaining, hands clutching his wheel mercilessly. For a split second, he turned his head to look behind him, smile shattering when he saw nothing, anger surging when his opponent easily overtook him right back and put his car right in front of Chanyeol’s.

He tried taking a left, the car followed to block him. Chanyeol threw himself on the other side but was yet again mirrored by the other, barred from taking the first place. They’d gotten out of the main streets now, back to the much more deserted roads around the city and each time Chanyeol tried dancing forward, the other blocked him right back.

"Fuck," Chanyeol whispered, voice submerged by the ever changing music, hands agitated bythe possibility of a loss as they pressed and pressed on the gas and his car swung around but never managed to run past his opponent.

He’d done it so many time throughout the whole race. But now, the opponent wasn’t playing with him anymore, Chanyeol realized. Jaw tight, teeth clenched, he gave everything he had, asked everything it had from his car and saw the finishing line drawn out by cars parked in front of a garage only a few meters away. He grew closer and closer and closer to the opponent, headlight reaching the side mirror of the other car.

Only a few seconds. His breath was short. Only a few seconds. He only had a few seconds to take over and win this. He drew closer, closer, only a few seconds.

But the other car wheezed past the finishing line, the front of Chanyeol’s car reaching that point only half a second later.

Anger kicked a loud sigh out of him, suffusing it into a groan.

His car slowly came to a halt next to the other’s. He closed his eyes, glad that the music was loud enough to drown out whatever was happening around him. He didn’t want to hear the audience’s reaction to the race and its outcome. Chanyeol hadn’t lost a single race in three months. That was more than a dozen of wins one after the other. All coming to an end tonight.

When he opened his eyes, he caught Sehuh’s gaze. The fucker was smiling at him, a big grin stretching lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked way too happy. Chanyeol hated him, in that moment.

He closed his eyes again. This was okay. Winning and losing. That was life. This was okay, this was actually amazing. He felt the corners of his lips rising a little, the tips of his fingers tingling when he let go of the wheel and dropped his hands on his lap. He’d forgotten the thrill of losing. The fire it ignited inside of him. Always winning could get boring.

He opened his eyes, looking to his right, and pulled on a button on the door to lower his left window. He had to congratulate his opponent. He had to see who had won against him. He kept his gaze on the tinted window, expectant for a few seconds, the sound of everyone talking and cheering and clinking plastic glasses and glass bottles blurring the beat of his heart, breath catching when the window was finally lowered.

All he saw at first was black hair, shining almost as prettily as the body of the car it was trapped in. And then, eyes. Eyes and an image of pain, an image that seared itself painfully on Chanyeol’s mind. Recollection. Recognition. Ignition. Byun Baekhyun.

Chanyeol didn’t move for a second, barely even felt himself breathing.

Then he blinked once, twice, watched as a wobbly smile was directed at him. He didn’t see it. Because the window wasn’t lowered enough to bare the lower half of Baekhyun’s face, but Chanyeol knew exactly what expression corresponded to that gaze he was given. He remembered. Like a simple equation he’d memorized when he was a child and could recite without a single flaw even now. Despite having never truly understood what it meant or symbolized.

But this, _this_ he knew. He knew what this meant, what it symbolized, what it did to him.

He forced his head to turn forward, ripping his gaze away from Baekhyun. His opponent. The winner of the race. The one person who’d made Chanyeol a loser. Yet again.

He pulled on the button and his window slid up to a close. His hand smacked against the gear and he shifted into reverse. The car made a surprised sound and a stutter when Chanyeol smacked his foot on the gas too abruptly, pulling the wheel to the side to turn away.

He had to leave.

The car jumped forward as he drove away, this time not racing but running away. No opponent, no adversary, no reputation to keep, no victory to gloat.

And yet, he had to be fast. He had to be faster. He had to leave and he had to do it fast.

On his way, he kept a trembling hand on the steering wheel and opened the glove box with his other one. The car slid way too much to the left and with a movement of violence he steered it back properly into the lane. He glanced down when he found what he was seeking.

Three cigarettes in a beat up pack from weeks ago. He grabbed one with his fingers along with the lighter in the box, spilling the other two sticks on the floor of his car. He nudged it between his lips and lit the cigarette, dragging a breath in until he felt like he would bust into pieces.

He stepped harder on the gas and breathed out silver curlicue of blurriness.

_Somewhere in a cloud of smoke, a Baekhyun from a past of perfection opened the door and an excited Chanyeol went in, buzzing with things to share with his favorite person._

_"I hope you don’t have anything planned this Saturday because there’s this street race we need to attend." A grin, big enough to rip open Chanyeol’s face. Maybe it should’ve._

_"What the hell? You were on the verge of not showering for a whole week just yesterday." A tilt of the head. A gesture that made Chanyeol’s body reach out in weakness and pull until they were both sitting on that couch they spent most of their evenings on, together._

_The couch was comfortable, homely. Not as much as Baekhyun’s existence in Chanyeol’s life._

_A thought slithering into Chanyeol’s head. He would spend every evening in this same place with this same person even if all he had to sit on was gravel and frozen floors instead of this couch._

_"Well. Dropping out of school takes its toll on someone."_

_"I know that. We took that decision together, didn’t we?"_

_"Law school just isn’t for us."_

_Shoulders pressing together. The need forcomfort. They didn’t need to voice it out. It was already there. Given with no expectations of a return. But it was there too. The return. With no hesitation._

_"Which is exactly why we should drown our sorrow and angst in car racing."_

_"Where did you even get that idea?"_

_"Don’t laugh at me! There’s this guy from one of my classes who invited me. He said he goes every week. So I thought we should go together just because."_

_Just because. His shoulder brushed against Baekhyun’s when he shrugged. Just because he felt like it._

_A gaze. Chanyeol soaked it in, wished it would never be given to anyone else but him. He didn’t know why he felt that way yet, why he that thought was planted into his head. He had no idea yet. He was still safe, in that one somewhere, still far from all the other somewheres that would devour him.Devour them. Both of them._

_"Sure, maybe it could be fun."_

_And that was all Chanyeol needed to be happy. It really was all he needed. Nothing more._

_It would be fun. It would be the best thing they would do because nothing was ever as good as when he did it with Baekhyun. Whatever it was, it was never as good if Baekhyun wasn’t involved in any way._

_The best part of everything was telling Baekhyun about it. Or living it with Baekhyun. Or living Baekhyun._

Chanyeol remembered death.

He remembered every single second of it. It wasn’t his own, it wasn’t anyone’s. It was the slow perishing of what they’d grown together with Baekhyun.

He stopped the car in an ugly place. A piece of ground that had nothing pretty to it, just grass at the end of the road, a bit of mud in the wetter moments of the year. Street lights in the horizon not meshed in any kind of impressing view. Just a road, a car, and an unpretty place for unpretty thoughts.

He’d never had one of those beautiful places, the ones he knew some of his friends had, the ones he’d seen in movies so many times. Chanyeol didn’t draw comfort from beauty, he drew comfort from the knowledge that something was uglier, in a worst shape, more on the brink of falling appart than he was. He looked back on the fissures spidering all over the one-way road he’d just taken to get here.

Headlights caught his gaze and he turned around, eyes closing and heart pouring out something unpleasant, something nasty and acid that he felt stirring his stomach.

He wasn’t even given any time to reflect, to gather himself up. He didn’t recognize the engine’s purr but the fact that he wasn’t able to recognize it was the worst of it. He’d never heard it before. For a whole year months. He’d never heard it and now he was hearing it and he’d never wanted to hear it.

The sound of a car door opening and closing again. Footsteps. Their loudening gradually tightening Chanyeol’s hands into fists. He showed them in the pockets of his leather jacket. It wasn’t enough to keep his skin warm. June nights were fresher than expected. The cold was supposed to have disappeared already. This was supposed to give him warmth. BUt all he could feel was the freezing panic snowballing in his throat, frosting his insides and resisting to the pound of his heart trying to shatter it.

"Wow, are those fists that are about to punch me that I see in your pockets or are you just happy to see me?" were the first words Chanyeol was allowed to hear from Baekhyun in so long. A stretch of time he’d kept measuring even after he’d stopped counting.

Chanyeol closed his eyes again and breathed out through his nose for a long moment. He should turn around. He should look at the other. He should stop hearing the echo of that voice in his head, of that playful façade he knew so well. It wasn’t thick enough for Chanyeol not to hear the tremors at the base of it. It was about to crumble down. Baekhyun was doing his best to hold it up. Like he’d always done.

He hated that he knew that. He hated that he hadn’t managed to forget that. He despised the way he still knew this like nothing had ever happened, like nothing had ever crawled between them and pushed them apart. Something _had_ happened.

Chanyeol’s body slapped him into a turn. He should be stuck there. He shouldn’t step closer. He shouldn’t let his body’s selfish desire for proximity lead him on. But he did.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" were the first words he allowed himself to throw at Baekhyun.

No relief, no happiness, no plead, no rippling in his voice. Too much difference from the last words they’d exchanged a lifetime ago.

Baekhyun remained silent for a moment, gaze shifting between Chanyeol’s eyes. He was dressed in all black, even his hair was of the darkest shade. He should be all black. He shouldn’t dazzle so strongly in Chanyeol’s eyes. Why wouldn’t he just stop shining so hard?

"I’m back," Baekhyun seemed to settle on saying, tone much more humorless than his first sentence.

Hearing that made something in Chanyeol darken into a disturbing sharpness. At some point, he’d wished for Baekhyun’s return even before he’d left.

"How come?" was all he said. Each of his words felt like they had to grind against his teeth to get out of his mouth.

Baekhyun huffed, furrowing his eyebrows. "Could you pleased look a little happier to see me?" he mumbled, looking down and crossing his arms against his chest, shifting one of his feet a centimeter back against the grassy ground.

And Chanyeol remembered every single bottomless second of the death he’d survived after Baekhyun had left him in cold blood.

He laughed. He opened his mouth wide and vomited a disastrous laugh, lifeless as a doll but much, much less pretty. The strength of that laugh pushed his body even closer to Baekhyun.

"I don’t remember being this funny to you," Baekhyun mumbled and Chanyeol could see his fingers digging one by one into his elbow. Anguish.

It made him laugh harder. He brought a hand up to his face. It felt like a slap. It felt like the perfect occasion to rip his entire face out, throw it at the ground and trample on it over and over again. He didn’t want to be that face, that person anymore.

"It’s easy for you, isn’t it?" he said, voice wracked even to his own ears, so much deeper than usual, gritted to pieces by the pain of having to look at that face. That face that hadn’t changed a bit. He wiped the thought away with a swing of his hand in the air, a gesture towards the dark frame of Baekhyun’s car, parked right next to Chanyeol’s. "You leave whenever you want. You come back whenever you want. You fucking race me." He let each of his words hit Baekhyun but didn’t look at him to see their effect. Instead, he looked somewhere on Baekhyun’s shoulder. "I take it you adjusted very well to being part of our rival team?"

He hadn’t talked about that in so long, not even with Jongdae. The betrayal still stung like a slap against his tongue whenever he pronounced those words. Baekhyun. Rival team. Chanyeol. Left.

He hoped the sting of it was the same to Baekhyun as it was to him. He hoped it so much.

But Baekhyun took it without any complaint. He took it with nothing more than a drooping of his entire face, features pulled down by something Chanyeol didn’t want to name. Because he was supposed to be the one in pain, not Baekhyun.

"That’s not what you want to say to me," Baekhyun replied, feet taking him closer to Chanyeol, enough for him to hear that whisper comfortably.

"You have no fucking idea how I feel or what I want," Chanyeol replied, voice sounding less and less appealing to his ears. He’d always liked his voice, the depth of it, the effect it had on the people he wanted it to have an effect on. He didn’t like the heinous bitterness that made it shiver right now. "You never took it into consideration."

"Okay," Baekhyun said, looking away and shaking his head the slightest bit. Light melted on the softness of his hair. Chanyeol should’ve turned his headlights off, like Baekhyun. But Baekhyun had always been better at ending things. "That’s not what I want to hear from you. This conversation is not the one I want to have with you."

It had always been about what Baekhyun wanted. And Chanyeol was tired of it. Tired of hearing the exhaustion in Baekhyun’s voice already. It had only been a minute and yet, he was already victim of depletion.

"Why are you back, Baekhyun?" he asked, rubbing his eyes with both of his hands, until his eyes felt like they had no room on his face anymore.

"I’m back because I miss you."

Just one sentence. Just one sentence that shouldn’t be said with so much ease. Chanyeol dropped his hands along his body, felt like their weight would crash him down under the ground if he wasn’t careful enough. Bury him. Suffocate him.

But he was already suffocating enough when, even in the dim light, even in the warm glow of the one streetlight a few meters on his right, the earnestness in Baekhyun’s eyes was obvious as the iciness of a winter.

He tried ignoring it but Baekhyun spoke again, stepping closer, moving his hands to illustrate the despair in his voice. Closer and closer. Chanyeol should move away. But Chanyeol was also bad at taking himself out of pain.

"I know you think I left to have a better life. Maybe I did. I do have a lot of good things for me now," he said, speaking fast, words almost blurred by the urgency in them. Chanyeol finally stepped back when he got too close. He didn’t want this. He couldn’t take his eyes off Baekhyun but maybe he could take his body away. Baekhyun’s hands dropped by his sides like deadweight. "But none of it is as good as it should be. Because you’re not part of that life."

Laughter again. This time Chanyeol felt the sting of it in his eyes, a burn he couldn’t keep inside for much longer. This time, it sounded like disbelief, choked into a compression somewhere in his chest.

He was hearing those words he’d wished for, for so long. He didn’t like it.

"Too fucking bad for you," he whispered, barely able to get those words out. He walked closer to Baekhyun then right past him. "That’s the life you chose. Live it until the end."

He gripped his car door like a lifeline, pulling at it like it would somehow save him from this. Months ago, he wouldn’t have even imagined he’d want saving if this situation ever occurred. But he couldn’t take this. He didn’t know why he couldn’t take it now, but he couldn’t.

He started his car, hurt his finger in his haste to fasten his seatbelt, clenched his jaw, and hit reverse. He turned his car around and then drove away. Eyes not on the road, but on that lone figure he could still see in the lightless reflection of his rearview mirror.

Chanyeol closed the door of his apartment with strength and the walls trembled as the sky fell fire on top of him. Each dropped seared itself in the rawest parts of his heart.

His keys dived from his hand to the floor and his body followed as he plummeted to his knees. His body tightened, folded over itself in a desperate attempt to protect itself. But it couldn’t and soon Chanyeol’s fingers were digging into his thighs, his shoulder squishing his head and neck as hard as they could, his eyes reinforcing their gates. But he couldn’t.

So he cried. He weeped, tremors on the corners of his body, rips in his voice, a loud ringing in his ears because he couldn’t breathe properly. He cried until his body felt like it wasn’t even there, until it felt like he was stuck in a spiral somewhere above the air and the compression would powder his entire existence into crumbs. Crumbs of confusion.

He didn’t understand why he wasn’t happy, why he wasn’t satisfied, why it was too late for them now. Why this was happening.

So he lamented, as hard as that very first day he’d had to live without Baekhyun.

In the morning, when Sehun opened the door to him, Chanyeol already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask. But he still asked it. That was the way he lived his life.

"Did you know about him?"

Chanyeol knew he didn’t have to say the name for Sehun to understand him and that was confirmed when Sehun sighed, opening the door wider for him to get inside.

"Yes," was all he answered and Chanyeol stopped in his tracks, one shoe off his foot and the other still on, socked toes against the back of it.

"Yes?" he repeated, voice much more agitated than Sehun’s. "How can you say that so easily?" he asked, resuming his task and moving to the living room once both of his shoes were off.

"Well, he’s my friend," Sehun mumbled, dropping on the couch. Or rather on one of the pillows on the couch. He nudged it out from under him, conveniently avoiding Chanyeol’s offended gaze.

That was okay. That was normal. Chanyeol needed to be an adult about this.

He sat down on the armchair perpendicular to the couch and rested his hands on the arms of it.

"Well, please tell _your_ friend I don’t want to see him ever again."

Sehun ended up taking the pillow and hugging it against his chest. Chanyeol looked at it. This is what he should’ve wished to do last night. Not with a pillow. With someone. A hug. It wasn’t what he’d wished for at all.

"I don’t like lying to my friends though," Sehun said, looking at him straight in the eyes.

Chanyeol raised his eyebrows and widened his features into offense. "It’s not a lie," he insisted, laughter weaving disbelief into his voice. Maybe he should just grab that pillow and suffocate his friend with it.

"Chanyeol," Sehun said, leaning forward, squishing the pillow against his lap. "He messaged me, asked me if you were still around here."

"And you thought saying yes was a good idea," Chanyeol mumbled but there was no animosity in his voice. Just exhaustion, he hadn’t slept very well at all.

"He came back for you," Sehun said, lowering his voice. Chanyeol looked at him and couldn’t even be upset by his actions when he saw those eyes.

Full of honesty and care and concern. Those same eyes Sehun had looked at him with every time Chanyeol had broken down in front of him and he’d had to gather him right back up to a decent human being in the past months.

He looked down. "Right after dumping me to go to the other side of the country in a city I fucking despise now."

"Yes," Sehun said, drawing the sound out in a way that etched the shadow of a smile on Chanyeol’s face. "But he’s here. You saw him the other night."

"Without any warning."

"You would’ve ran away."

Chanyeol furrowed his eyebrows. He couldn’t counter that honestly.

"No," he still tried.

"You’re a really bad liar," Sehun snorted, leaning back into the couch. Chanyeol dug a finger into the cushiness of the armchair. "You saw him last night. You left but still. How did you feel? What do you want?"

Sehun had asked that question to him so many times already. Chanyeol had never been able to reply until now.

"Nothing," he said, looking up as it breathed in. He meant it honestly this time.

He didn’t want anything. He’d stopped asking for what was being given to him right now, a long time ago. Baekhyun being back in his life, Baekhyun coming back for him, them building something back together. He’d already had too much, too much of something that wasn’t even good. Too much of pain. Just thinking about reliving all of that, just _starting_ to relive all of that made him want to hide in his room and never get out. Once again.

"Chanyeol," Sehun said and Chanyeol knew that voice. He closed his voice, leaned back into the chair and got himself ready for the undeniable truth Sehun was about to hit him with. "Until a month ago you were telling me that you didn’t want to live with regrets and the knowledge that there was some words you wanted to hear but never would."

Sighing, Chanyeol opened his eyes, scratched the fabric of the chair with a fingernail, chewed on the corner of his lips. He’d only said that because he thought he’d never have the occasion of hearing those words, becausehe thought the occasion of getting rid of those regrets would never be given to him. But it was right there. Byun Baekhyun and the ending possibilities that would amount to the same thing. Every single possibility and option and branch and road would tie up to the same thing.

Chanyeol being left behind, being swamped in a puddle of pain that was deeper than all the oceans of this world gathered together.

"So what?" he said, eyeing the controllers on the low table. Maybe they should do something other than talk about Baekhyun. "Is he back in our team?"

He didn’t want to be in the same racing team as Baekhyun anymore, even if there was no concrete team. Just friends who always hung out and represented each other in every single race. And rival teams. Chanyeol’s favorite thing about street racing was that the competition could get really serious, even though there was never much at stake besides money and reputation.

But it felt wrong for Baekhyun to leave the team and get back in whenever he wanted. He knew Sehun didn’t mind, knew Jongdae, their third member, wouldn’t mind either. But Chanyeol minded.

"He’s not back to be part of our team again," Sehun said with a shrug and a poignant stare. "He’s back to be part of your life again."

Chanyeol snorted, looked away. Maybe that was what Baekhyun had meant last night when he’d talked about not being satisfied with what he had. But that was what he’d chosen and he’d chosen it over a life with Chanyeol sometime ago.

He stood up. The armchair was closing in around him. He felt constricted. He couldn’t talk about this anymore. He didn’t want to break down and have Sehun rebuild him again like he’d done many times already. Chanyeol was tired of that.

He was just starting to be stable, to enjoy whatever he had going on even if there was one missing person. Why did Baekhyun have to come back when things had finally started getting bearable?

"Let’s play something," he said out of nowhere, nodding towards the TV.

Sehun followed his gaze and Chanyeol was thankful when he accepted the change of topic.

"Sure, just set it up while I get us something to drink," he said, standing up and throwing the pillow to Chanyeol’s chest. Chanyeol’s hand clocked it just in time for it to bounce back to Sehun’s foot. He laughed and pointed a finger at Chanyeol. "I’m gonna get us something to drink and it won’t be alcohol because you always get me drunk and then boast about winning."

"I literally never do that," Chanyeol said, sharpening his eyes into offense, trying to be convincing enough but probably failing. He felt grateful, because Sehun was adjusting to him, was kind of picking him up even before Chanyeol was down.

"Right," Sehun said, elongating his word into suspicion and looking at Chanyeol as he walked backwards towards the kitchen.

Chanyeol made a show of rolling his eyes at him and then grabbed the remote control to turn the TV on.

His shoulders drooped when Sehun was gone. He distracted himself with setting up a game, ignoring the feeling of expansion in his throat. It was now familiar enough for him to almost live with it comfortably.

_Somewhere in a chapter opened up by a soul split into two bodies, Chanyeol and Baekhyun were laughing so hard it was hard to breathe._

_Laughing. Screaming. Excitement. Hearts racing. Fast as the pace of this first ever race. Eyes finding other eyes in the midst of it._

_The car felt like it was floating in the most flawless of universes. A sharp turn. Street lights. Smoke behind them. Baekhyun’s hand dropped on his forearm when Chanyeol steered the wheel too brutally to the left. He felt himself turning into smoke under the touch. Baekhyun inhaled him. Nothing was left behind._

_It was going so fast. Too fast. Chanyeol would never stop. He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up here. Not here as in the car. Here as in wanting Baekhyun’s lungs to be filled with nothing but him._

_Honking to their right. A glance to the rearview mirror. A grin. The car surging forward one last time. An imaginary finish line made out of twin cars placed at the entrance of a parking lot._

_Victory._

_Cheers and applause._

_Sehun, his friend from college, pointing at them while talking to some people. An inviting gesture._

_Baekhyun looking at him. His smile was so exhilarating. Maybe it was just because of the thrill of the race. Maybe that was the only reason why Chanyeol’s heart felt overflowing when Baekhyun grabbed his hand and pulled him to Sehun and his friends._

_The beginning of everything._

_The end of something that hadn’t even begun yet._

_Illumination._

_Chanyeol looked upwards as Baekhyun excitedly asked Sehun when the next race was. The sky ripped into warmth, the sun peeking in just as Sehun asked them if they would be interested in joining a team he wanted to start with another friend, Jongdae. Nothing much. The four of them would just make a team of reckless kids with wealthy parents and expensive cars they could drive much, much faster than they did in the daylight._

_He looked at Baekhyun. Baekhyun looked at him. Chanyeol wanted to get back into that car with him and drive, drive, drive until Baekhyun would never want to get out of there. But races only happened at night. It was limited. They’d ran out of time already._

_Maybe someone should bring back the moon, just so Chanyeol and Baekhyun had all night to themselves and the roads they enflamed together._

_Baekhyun beamed at him and looked back at Sehun, giving him the answer he’d seen in the reflection of his smile, right on Chanyeol’s face._

_Yes. They would love to do that. To join that team. They would love it so much. Driving and racing and running out of breath and chasing each other. They would love it and let it consume them._

_Maybe someone should bring down the sun, just so Baekhyun was the only dazzle Chanyeol could see._

_He didn’t want anything else._

_Nobody else. Nothing else._

A closed door, en empty room. An open mind, a head filled with thoughts splattering against each other.

As he lay in the middle of his bed, in the middle of the night, Chanyeol didn’t look at anything in particular. He kept his eyes closed even though feigning sleep was never good enough to lure it in and trap himself inside of it.

But he was already trapped inside of something else. Something that broiled his insides, something that made his fingers twitch, something that made his jaw hurt from the tension he’d execrated on it all day. Every single time his gaze swept a room to make sure Baekhyun wasn’t in it. To hope that maybe Baekhyun was in it. No. Not that wasn’t it.

It shouldn’t be it. It was boiling harder inside of him. He squeezed his eyes harder and breathed out from his nose, a viciousness stretching the breath long enough for him to realize what it was that kept him from sleeping tonight.

That was when he realized it. It was something old, very old. Something people rarely took into consideration maybe.

Nobody knew it, perhaps, but retribution was even more ancient than hatred. Chanyeol wondered which one was born into the world first, which side of the same coin was designed first. Which one _he_ ’d started feeling first.

Chanyeol knew it. Hatred was born out of retribution. Bad things were done. A person lived its consequences. Same person started hating, hating the consequences, the people involved, the world.

This didn’t make much sense. Chanyeol needed to sleep but the streetlight outside of his window shone too bright and his shoulder hurt from turning around for the past two hours without giving his body any rest. The blanket felt too hot, too heavy. The thought of everything he’d lived until now was more crushing than that feathery weight.

Chanyeol had hated a lot of people in his life. He’d retributed a lot of them too. In high school, his girlfriend had kissed someone else behind his back. Chanyeol had made out with her best friend the very next day. That was one of the revenges he wasn’t proud of.

In primary school, his teacher had told him that speaking so much was useless if he didn’t even know how to curve his letters properly among the lines of his notebook. The whole class had laughed at him. There wasn’t much retribution there, just a victory. He’d stayed up late for a whole week after that, practicing his letters until his hand cramped and his eyes burned. When he’d gotten the best grade out of the whole class for his writing on the next test, he’d asked her _can I speak whenever I want now?_ The whole class had laughed.

At a race, someone had once called him a faggot. Chanyeol hated that word, just like everyone it was ever directed at, he imagined. He’d driven so fast that night, rounding up to the finish line so quickly that the amount of time he’d had to wait for the opponent to arrive after him had been humiliating for that guy.

Chanyeol had also been aimed by retribution though, had also been hated. By Baekhyun. He wasn’t good enough so he was dumped. He wasn’t kind enough so he’d never heard from Baekhyun after he left. So Chanyeol had hated. Chanyeol still hated. So Chanyeol sought retribution. He’d already punished himself for not being good enough for Baekhyun to stay, for being someone that Baekhyun had left.

He’d become someone else at that time, when it was still fresh, someone who didn’t eat, someone who didn’t sleep, someone who’d started smoking for the first time ever, someone who’d kissed so many people in one month that he felt like his mouth wasn’t his anymore.

But it hadn’t ever been his. It had always been Baekhyun’s.

And as he lay there, Chanyeol could feel it. The fact that it had never changed, would probably never change.

Just when he’d stopped thinking about Baekhyun before sleeping every night. Just when he’d stopped wishing he could share things with Baekhyun as soon as he discovered them. Just when he’d started hoping that, wherever he was, Baekhyun was happy. Just when he’d begun feeling like Chanyeol. Not a Chanyeol heartbroken and trying to adjust to a life where he was dumped by someone he’d always imagined with him. No. Just Chanyeol.

He wanted to be that. A Chanyeol before Baekhyun, before heartbreak, before emotions, before love.

But if Chanyeol had the power to achieve the things he wanted, he wouldn’t even be thinking about this. He’d already be sleeping by now.

But Chanyeol hated. He hated and sought retribution from Baekhyun in a room full of people.

And it was a bit annoying, the fact that this living room was full of people, some of them people that he didn’t know and that could be very nice discoveries, and yet it wasn’t what Chanyeol was focused on. This room was bursting with a heavy bass and trendy lyrics that suited his taste, vibrating with the colors of various cocktails, buzzing with the dancing of the crowd, and yet that wasn’t even enough to captivate Chanyeol away from what he wished he could ignore.

"He came here for you, you know," Sehun said, bumping his glass against Chanyeol’s for literally no reason. As if that would distract Chanyeol from this continuous defending of someone he was certainly not supposed to defend.

Sehun had started being his friend first, why couldn’t he just insult Baekhyun the way everyone insulted their best friend’s exes?

"Who?" was the reply Chanyeol gave him, tilting his head in his best imitation of obliviousness.

Sehun rolled his eyes and that annoyance was enough victory for Chanyeol to merely smile when someone bumped into him from behind and apologized with a gesture.

"You’re being mean," Sehun said as soon as Chanyeol turned back to him.

Chanyeol froze, offense stopping his arm mid-lifts, lips remaining open for a moment when there was no cup and no alcohol for them to meet.

"Why am I being treated like the villain when I’m the one who got dumped, for fuck’s sake," he grumbled, furrowing his eyebrows and taking a big gulp of his drink, big enough for him to feel it a bit too much when it crowded his throat.

Before Sehun could reply, Chanyeol heard a laugh way too clearly for all the noise parasitizing the room. He looked to the left, at the other end of the room, where Baekhyun was standing with a group of people, laughing while looking at a tall girl with a pretty blue dress. Baekhyun probably had only met them tonight. He was dressed in all black, shirt unbuttoned enough to show off the carved collarbones he was so proud of. He said something and everyone around him laughed. He always lured adoration out of everyone so easily.

Chanyeol looked away. Chanyeol hated. He hated for a senseless reason and he remembered this exact feeling and suddenly Sehun wasn’t standing in front of him anymore and there was no more alcohol in his glass and his stomach was sweltering a little and suddenly he was closer to Baekhyun and was hanging a new cup full of something offered to him by a guy he’d seen around a few times during races.

And Chanyeol remembered this effect and he hated this effect Baekhyun had on him, he’d never been able to bear it.

So Chanyeol laughed with the guy, took in every bit of conversation he was offered, ignored Baekhyun’s voice behind him, ignored when he caught a glimpse of Sehun and Jongdae talking while looking at him a few steps away, accepted yet another cup and was starting to feel its effect on him.

The music changed, the conversation topic did too. This guy was pretty interesting, even if Chanyeol hadn’t even asked for his name. The music changed again, Chanyeol felt someone dancing behind him and then disappearing a moment later. He didn’t see, he was too focused on talking too much, laughing too much, moving his body to face Baekhyun, looking away whenever their eyes met, feeling satisfied to have won over Baekhyun’s attention.

He hated being this version of himself. He hated it. He wished he could just dance with his friends like everyone else did, wished he could join Sehun and Jongdae and introduce his new friend to them, wished he could cheer on that beer pong game he could hear from the kitchen, wished he could join those two girls trying to convince the make-shift DJ to give them his phone so they could put a song on.

He continued, laughing, talking, touching someone he barely even knew at every funny joke, pointedly looking away when Baekhyun met his gaze.

His new friend touched his bare arm, asking Chanyeol if he’d like another drink. His hand remained there. Chanyeol looked down at it. Nothing. He felt nothing about it. He never did.

That was when he realized what he was doing, who he was being. Sourness spread in his mouth, gluing his tongue down, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol he suddenly felt like regurgitating.

He didn’t want to do this anymore. He didn’t want to go back to that, didn’t want to be this kind of person anymore. It was useless and terrible and Chanyeol had grown past that. He was supposed to, he thought so, at least, until Baekhyun burst into his life again.

Suddenly, the music was too loud, the touch on his arm too searing, and the people around him too invasive. Chanyeol stepped back, the boy dropped his hand and tilted his head in confusion. Chanyeol smiled at him, as much as he could, shaking his head and telling him he had to get some fresh hair and he would catch him later. He would. This was a friend. Chanyeol wasn’t the kind of person who would never even look back on this guy anymore.

He left that Chanyeol from the past who was trying to reign over him again, left him in that crowded room and headed to the exit. He didn’t even attempt looking at Baekhyun. He left him in that room. He wished he could leave him in that room and never hear from him again.

But did he really?

Chanyeol stepped out of the house, grateful that Jongdae lived in an actual single house rather than an apartment. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, swelling down the discomfort in his chest. He didn’t like himself. In this kind of moments, he hated who he was and who he could be if he didn’t control himself.

He could still hear the music vibrating from inside, could still feel it lurching in his stomach. Looking down, he shoved a hand in the pocket of his jacket, hand wrapping around a small box. He pulled it out, flicked the lid open with his thumb. He crushed his lips together. His head hurt a little. He needed to clear it out, breathe it out.

He took a cigarette and let it pry his lips apart. He was already feeling less constricted. He didn’t know whether it was because he wasn’t in that bustling room anymore or because he was about to smoke. His head was already starting to unclog. It was okay. He wasn’t supposed to smoke but it was okay. Little by little, he was stopping. He wasn’t smoking as much as before. He was getting better. It was still early enough for him to stop without much difficulty, he’d only started smoking a year ago.

His thumb snapped against the lighter, rising a flame out of it and sizzling ignition into the cigarette. The door opened behind him right at that moment and Chanyeol closed his eyes at the first drag, feeling it asphyxiate him a little as the music from inside screamed into his ears.

"You’ve changed," Baekhyun said from behind him. His sentence was finalized by the soft closing of the door, the music dimming down again.

Chanyeol looked down, flicked his thumb against the butt of his cigarette. "How so?" he asked, despite himself.

He felt his body react to Baekhyun’s presence, shoulders tightening, skin painfully present on every centimeter of him, head veering towards thoughts of whether he looked good in this jacket, whether his hair was still styled properly or he’d ruffled it too much. He wanted to kill his cigarette. Baekhyun had never seen him smoke before.

"In the past, you would’ve kissed that person in front of me," was Baekhyun’s answer. Not a single hint of a laugh, not a single tonality of accusation. Just a plain statement that made Chanyeol’s lips quiver a little.

He hid it by taking a drag. Chanyeol had done that before. Baekhyun had also done similar senseless, useless, and completely harmful things. Chanyeol didn’t want them to be that anymore. But they weren’t anything at all anyway.

The reminder bit into his next words with a scoff. "Well, would you have preferred if I did?" He didn’t know why Baekhyun was saying that to him, why Baekhyun was even here standing next to him when he’d been having so much fun inside.

Chanyeol didn’t know why _he_ was still here instead of running far off to the opposite direction.

He also didn’t know why he replied that way. As if _that_ was even a possibility.

He hadn’t kissed anyone in six months. He hadn’t even felt desire for a single person in a year. He’d figured it was useless to kiss people he didn’t even truly want.

"You also didn’t smoke before," Baekhyun added and this time, Chanyeol allowed himself to look his way. "You also never drunk beer before. You hated the taste."

His hair curtained his forehead in a middle part, melting beauty on either side of his face, pouring it all over his face. Chanyeol let his gaze dip in. A trap. Now, he couldn’t get his gaze out of there. He let admiration inundate him.

The black of his hair made his skin look smoother, even more than Chanyeol remembered it to be. The front porch light was dim and a fiery yellow. The shade looked handpicked to beautify the bridge of Baekhyun’s nose.

Chanyeol closed his eyes, turned his head away. His neck hurt a little bit from the tension and the force in that movement.

"And?" he replied, looking down, crushing the ashes of his cigarettes by rubbing the tip of his sneakers against the ground.

It was weird. The fact that they were having somewhat of a conversation. The ghost of a conversation, something lesser than all the lively words they used to exchange before everything that happened.

"You’ve changed," were the words Baekhyun pronounced, low, shadowed by some kind of sorrow. It weighed. Baekhyun let it drop down and clamp on Chanyeol’s chest just a little.

He flicked the butt of his cigarette. Flicked again. Didn’t bring it to his mouth, just let it consume itself. He felt like laughing, felt like pulling his hair out just a little. But the entire area around his heart already sent pulsations of pain through his entire body, Chanyeol didn’t want to add to it.

Why would Baekhyun be sad about Chanyeol changing? Why, when the person Chanyeol used to be hadn’t even good enough for Baekhyun to never leave him?

"I wouldn’t say I’ve changed," Chanyeol answered, pointedly not looking at the other. Because he felt his eyes begging him to, because he felt his entire body trying to swing him that way, because it was already taking all of Chanyeol’s strength not to run away from this situation. "I’d say I’ve grown up a bit. I don’t do childish and harmful things anymore, like kissing people in front of an ex lover." He wanted to vomit. He hid it by laughing a cacophonous sound. "Why is it bad?"

He had to be an adult about this. He wanted to know. He wanted to talk about things with Baekhyun. He didn’t want to just hate him and leave or get hurt and leave. Or maybe he just didn’t want Baekhyun to leave again and talking to him was a way of holding him down.

"It isn’t," Baekhyun said and Chanyeol watched him rub the tip of his sneaker against the ground. Same gesture. Same shoe. Different color. Chanyeol wanted to crush his cigarette against right on top of his own shoes, scratch away a similarity between them. Of course Baekhyun had bought the same shoes as him without them even being aware of it. "I guess I’m just sad that I wasn’t there to see you grow."

And really, this was enough. Enough of sadness in that voice. Enough of nerve from the half that wasn’t supposed to be heartbroken. The half that left on its own accord.

"Why the fuck are you here Baekhyun?" he finally snapped, turning to the other, meeting a face that looked just the perfect shape to be cradled by Chanyeol’s hand. "Why do you keep talking like you’re not the one who chose not to be here?"

Baekhyun furrowed his eyebrows, shoulders puffing up with a sigh he didn’t let out. Chanyeol pressed the palm of his hand against the butt of his cigarette, focusing on the heat. Reminding himself over and over again to be an adult about this.

"I’m choosing to be here right now," he said, voice lowered into a whisper that wan’t really one. It was the kind of voice Baekhyun took whenever he was trying _not to_ raise his voice. Chanyeol had heard those same upheavals of despair matching the plea in his eyes so many times before. "And why are you acting like you’re not the one who said terrible things when I left?"

Chanyeol scoffed, looking sideways for a moment. He chose to ignore the accusation. "So what? You decided you actually don’t like your new team so you’re back with us?" he counter-attacked instead.

Baekhyun closed his eyes. "I don’t care about racing, Chanyeol," he said, enunciating each word slowly.

Cheers elevated muffles on the other side of the door. Chanyeol wished he could be as happy and carefree as these people on the other side.

When he remained silent a bit too long, Baekhyun opened his eyes. They were shining, complemented so prettily by the light around them. Chanyeol hit his thumb against the cigarette, violating it into ashes.

"I mean, it’s not what’s important here," Baekhyun developed, never once looking away from Chanyeol. He’d always been so good at looking at Chanyeol and never straying his gaze away. It used to make Chanyeol feel special, now it made his skin wish it could fold into itself and disappear. "What’s important is that a year has passed. A year and I know what I want. What I want is you."

Screams of joy on the other side of the door, Chanyeol could hear the beat changing into a song that was popular enough to be adored by most people in there, probably. He wished he didn’t feel that joy in his own body. Because of a song he’d wished to hear for so long, a succession of words that came out of Baekhyun’s mouth and stitched adoration inside of him.

He shook his head, slowly, looking away from the genuineness drooping Baekhyun eyebrows.

This was a change. He didn’t like it. Baekhyun usually never explicitly said what he wanted, he never even knew what he actually wanted. It was always a guessing game, the best part of what they had.

But there was no guessing anymore and there was nothing they had anymore either.

"Last time I saw you," Chanyeol said and he saw Baekhyun’s gaze falling to the cigarette he was still holding. Chanyeol loosened his fingers, let it crash on the floor, stamped on it with a sound that burst in loudness between them. His voice was much weaker, much less agressive when he spoke again, calling Baekhyun’s attention back to him. "Last time I saw you, you didn’t want me. You wanted something else."

That came off too mean. Chanyeol’s voice too scratchy and heavy with blame.

Baekhyun looked down, a few strands of hair moving to protect one of his eyes from Chanyeol’s glare. But Chanyeol would never do anything to hurt him. He would’ve never done anything to hurt Baekhyun. And yet. And yet.

Chanyeol looked away and took a step back. They were standing way too close to each other, closer than when the conversation had started. He hadn’t even realized it. It didn’t make him want to laugh at all.

His feet were colossally heavy when he moved. He felt himself wearing out. He didn’t want to fight. Fighting was tiresome. Chanyeol barely had anything left in him to carry it.

Maybe Baekhyun felt the same way, maybe he just sensed it. Chanyeol saw him shake his head from the corner of his eye.

"How are you? How have you been this year?" he asked, changing the topic, trading the tremors in his voice for something much more vulnerable.

Something that sounded like an opening. Chanyeol made it a point not to look at him. His eyes hurt. He was tired. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to start crying either.

But he ceded and looked at him for a quick second. Because this was another change. The version of Baekhyun he knew before would’ve continued prickling him until this turned into a full fight.

Chanyeol breathed in loudly, held the air in, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, looked at the wind slowly caressing the one tree Sehun had in his front yard. He breathed out and decided not to fight.

"I’ve been alright," he said and he didn’t know why he was here, standing with Baekhyun, talking with him. But it didn’t feel as wrong as it should. And Baekhyun asked, Baekhyun wondered. Chanyeol had never been good at telling him no. He followed a passing car with his gaze. "Some people left. Some people arrived. We’re still racing. I’m still loving the thrill of it. Nothing much has changed." That was a lie. So much had changed, enough for Chanyeol not to remember who he used to be before Baekhyun, or before Baekhyun left. He looked down, furrowed his eyebrows, wanted to share more, tried not to and failed. "I’ve decided to start school again next year."

"Oh really?" Baekhyun said and while he had not reacted to the first part of Chanyeol’s words, this time, he turned his body entirely towards Chanyeol and looked at him. "What courses will you take?"

Chanyeol tried his hardest not to look at him and succeeded. But the loss was bigger here. It had always been so easy for Baekhyun to pull words out of him.

"I want to be a school counselor."

Baekhyun remained silent for a moment. When Chanyeol looked at him, he was smiling.

Soft and still as the surface of puddle. But not water. Baekhyun wasn’t nearly as good for him as water was for anyone. Chanyeol had come to that conclusion four months ago.

"You’ve always wanted to make a difference," he finally said.

Chanyeol wrapped a fist around the cigarette pack in his pocket. He didn’t like the way Baekhyun talked as if he still knew him by heart. He’d changed, Baekhyun had said so himself, so why did he still know Chanyeol right down to the core?

"What about you?" was the question Chanyeol chose to voice out instead. Not because he wanted to return the attention. Because he wanted to know everything he’d missed during that one year Baekhyun had lived without him.

He was dying to know. Not knowing always squeezed an ache into his heart, every single time he’d thought about Baekhyun in that passing year. All the things Baekhyun had lived, all the people he’d met, all the happiness he’d felt and Chanyeol would never know.

Or at least he’d thought so. But here they were, standing at an awkward distance from each other. Odd, because their shoulders and their arms always used to be as closely pressed to each other as possible.

"Nothing much for me," Baekhyun replied, doing that little thing with his head and shoulder tilting towards each other. "I hadn’t raced in two months until I raced you the other day. Instead I’m looking to start a business. Buying and selling cars."

"How come?" Chanyeol asked, forgetting all about his decision to look at the other as little as possible. He’d never heard about this project.

"I made a friend," Baekhyun explained, looking down and smiling. "She helped me a lot and gave me the idea actually."

Chanyeol’s breath stuck up somewhere in his throat, an expanding sensation of discomfort. He didn’t like that look on Baekhyun while he was talking about someone he’d met. Questions erupted in his head, a need for reassurance emerging. He stomped it down. Baekhyun had met someone.

"I actually want to start that business here," Baekhyun continued, looking back up at Chanyeol. His eyes were lined with assurance. "I’m going to settle back here. My entire life, friends, and family are here anyway. I’m back for good."

Chanyeol looked away. He didn’t like that. It had always been easy to stay here because Baekhyun wasn’t here.

Baekhyun had met someone. Baekhyun would settle here. With that person he’d just met. That was a possibility. Baekhyun and someone that wasn’t Chanyeol. That was a possibility. An easy possibility, from the looks of it.

Baekhyun would be here for a long time. Baekhyun and those new friends who probably gave him so much good and were part of his life now and had helped Baekhyun for a whole year while Chanyeol had been ejected out of his life.

It was too much. Right then, it became too much. He stepped down the two small steps on the porch and into the graveled, small pathway instead.

"I think I’ll just go home now, I’m tired," he said, reaching for his back-pocket, wondering if he’d sobered up enough to drive.

"Wait-" he heard Baekhyun call behind him but he ignored it, raising a hand as a gesture of goodbye.

"Nice talking to you," he said, quickening his steps. He had to get out of here. He barely even cared that he was lying.

It had been nice talking to Baekhyun at first and then every word he’d said started searing pain into Chanyeol’s stomach and he had to run away from here. It always ended that way. Everything always ended that way. Everything always just ended.

He got into his car and drove away from an unchanging ending.

_Somewhere under a pristine perfect sky, they were celebrating Baekhyun’s were first race win._

_They’d taken a trip to the beach. Chanyeol had laughed the whole drive there as Baekhyun did his best to murder every single song that played in the car. He could sing pretty well if he wanted to but instead, he preferred belting out animal-like sounds. Chanyeol wondered if he did it only because he wanted to make him laugh._

_That would make Baekhyun an amazing best friend. All it took was a few months for Chanyeol to figure that out. They’d barely even known each other for more than a year, after meeting on the benches of classes they both hated but attended because it was their parents’ dream and not theirs._

_Baekhyun’s parents owned an electronics company and Chanyeol’s father had built up his own hospital from the ground years ago. They understood each other on a lot of points._

_The sand was playful under their bare toes, tickling and warming up their skin. Baekhyun was wearing an oversized white hoodie. It reflected perfectly on his skin, under the brightness of the sun. That was the only reason why Chanyeol felt blinded. The real only reason._

_They drank a lot. Chanyeol didn’t know what it was about today but he couldn’t take his eyes off Baekhyun. Baekhyun who’d chosen to celebrate his first win with no-one but Chanyeol. Just the two of them, on a beach, at the verge of a sea of radiance. Chanyeol moved closer to him, his shoulder brushing sand into Baekhyun’s._

_He didn’t know what it was about today but his eyes couldn’t get enough of Baekhyun. But Baekhyun wasn’t different. He’d always been this way, small, imposing, endearing, infuriating. Beautiful. But there was something about today, it made Chanyeol unable to ignore it any longer._

_They lay there, beside each other. There was nothing between the blanket of sand and their clothes. They didn’t mind. If a bomb exploded in the sky and sucked the color out of it, Chanyeol wouldn’t even mind. This was enough. Being next to Baekhyun was enough. He didn’t need any other solace or hue or view. This was more, way more than enough._

_Birds flew above them, shadows caressing their skin. Head turned, eyes met mid-laughter. Jokes and pride were shared. Baekhyun had won his first race and he was amazing and unstoppable and Chanyeol would watch that grandiosity for the rest of his life, if Baekhyun didn’t find it too weird, if he allowed him to._

_Time passed, winds danced, drops of celebration drinks were spilled, laughs were blended together into harmony. They looked at each other. Words were exchanged, bodies turned towards each other. They looked at each other. A hand was raised, strands of Chanyeol’s hair were tucked behind his hair. They looked at each other._

_The sun bowed for them, ending a show that went ignored. The moon bowed for them, ascending into the stage, sprinkling sparkles all around itself. They never looked away from each other._

_Chanyeol saw the sun reflected on one of Baekhyun’s eyes, then he saw the moon reflected on his other eye. Grandiose, celestial entities. He didn’t watch the sky throughout it all, he watched Baekhyun. There was no other view, no other spectacle he wanted. Just Baekhyun._

_It was grandiose, too much, too good, something he could barely even hold in his chest. Whatever it was. He didn’t know yet. That Chanyeol had no idea yet. He was still at the good part back then. It was only the grand beginning of everything._

_But Chanyeol didn’t feel small, didn’t feel insignificant, didn’t fear getting crushed, getting pushed over the edge of the universe._

_He felt shined upon, welcomed. Right into Baekhyun’s eyes, right into the silence that befell over them, right into the stare they shared in enchantment._

_There was something about today’s Baekhyun._

_Something that made Chanyeol dive right in._

_Their lips gathered all the universes around them to a single point, an explosion that created their world, that kickstarted the existence of what they would share from them on._

_Chanyeol felt like he could breathe underwater as they kissed. Like there was nothing he couldn’t achieve, nothing he couldn’t win against._

_It was only much later that he’d sink._

"I think you’re being just a little crazy here."

Chanyeol hit the ball a bit too strongly and watched it bounce right towards Sehun’s face.

Sehun stopped it just in time, protecting his face with his hands and a ridiculous little yelp that pulled Chanyeol’s lips into a grin of satisfaction.

"Crazy is the way you’re so good at this game on console but in real life, you really almost suck those balls," Jongdae retorted in Chanyeol’s stead, catching the ball and dribbling it right in front of Sehun.

"Stop with those shitty word plays, for the love of all that is good in this world," Sehun replied, words cut off here and there by breathy puffs of air as he tried stealing the ball from Jongdae.

Chanyeol snorted and let his body drop the floor as he sat down, a bit too exhausted. Maybe he’d been going on too strong at this game, taking out every negative thing he felt on it. It helped a little.

Sehun slapped the ball right out of Jongdae’s hands, letting out a big, victorious _aha!_ and immediately running with it towards the basket. Jongdae laughed and went after him. Chanyeol smiled, shaking his head a little. There was almost no one around, just the occasional passersby enjoying the nice weather. There were no kids arpiund but these two made ups for it pretty nicely.

Chanyeol cheered loudly, raising a hand when Sehun managed to throw the ball into the basket. Jongdae’s voice overpowered his as he celebrated while Sehun made a wiggly victory dance.

"Seriouslt though," Sehun said, dropping next to him, breathless as Jongdae went to his backpack at the corner of the playground to fetch them water bottles. "Why are you panicking about Baekhyun suddenly getting married and making kids and you having to see them play in the neighboring house’s front yard?"

"I didn’t say _that_ ," Chanyeol mumbled, furrowing his eyebrows.

Sehun tilted his head and gave him a look, stopping only to look at Jongdae and catch the bottle he threw him.

"He does have a point," Jongdae said, holding his hip with a hand as he stood in front of them, choosing not to sit on the floor. "Baekhyun never said that’s what he would do."

Chanyeol sighed, puffing his cheeks up. "I just don’t understand why he’s here," he said, grabbing the bottle Sehun was holding to him.

"Do you sincerely not like the fact that he’s here?" Sehun asked, twirling the bottle cap between his fingers. "Honestly. Think about it before answering."

Chanyeol took the time to gulp down a bit of cool water down his throat. He barely even knew what he felt. He’d thought about it all for the past two days and yet he still didn’t know.

"I feel thrown off about this," he settled on saying as he gave the bottle back to Sehun. He frowned. "I actually don’t hate that he’s here. Now that I got used to it, it’s alright. But. I don’t like it. Because he’s here but it’s not the same. And I don’t like him being here and it not being the same. What am I supposed to do? Watch him be happy with someone else? What’s the point?"

He dropped his hands, just now noticing that he’d been illustrating his confusion with wild gestures. He saw Jongdae and Sehun glancing at each other.

"But that’s not what he came back for," Jongdae said, the bottle he was holding swinging by his side.

"Yeah, you’re focusing on the negative side," Sehun agreed, nodding as he hit the bottom of his bottle against the knee. Someone drove by in a bike, leaving a ding behind. "It’s like you heard the worst possible thing in his words. Something he didn’t even say."

He was right. Chanyeol knew he was right but why was it bad? Why was he crazy? Why wasn’t this considered normal?

"I’ve been dumped, guys. I can’t do anything but expect the worse happening right in front of my eyes." Speaking shouldn’t give him such an unavoidable sentiment of sourness in his mouth.

Silence settled over them for a moment. Chanyeol hated this. It was the kind of silence that meant that his friends were hurting and feeling for him but there was nothing much they could do and they knew it.

"Maybe he regrets things," Jongdae said, raising his bottle and glancing to his left when a small group of teenagers approached the playground and looked at them through the grill.

Chanyeol scoffed and pushed himself up. That should make him happy. It didn’t. The hope that single possibility ignited in the pit of his stomach merely terrified him. He grabbed Sehun’s bottle and downed the remaining water. It wasn’t enough to extinguish it.

"He never said that to me either," he said then, before sighing and nodding towards the kids. "Let’s leave the playground to them and got to my house. We can play games."

"Good idea, maybe that way Sehun will be able to score more than one point in a whole hour," Jongdae said, side-eyeing Sehun before bursting into laughter when Sehun tried to take the bottle from him.

Probably in an attempt to pour it all over Jongdae as a counter attack.

That was good enough to make Chanyeol smile and pull him away from the blurriness Baekhyun brought to his life. It had only started clearing up a little. He chose to ignore it for the rest of the day.

A loud buzzing furrowed Chanyeol’s eyebrows in his sleep. He folded his legs, bunching his blanket around him, turning his head to the other side. Another buzz. Chanyeol’s eyes snapped open and he looked towards the entrance, eyes wide.

Another impatient buzz. He closed his eyes and sat up, pushing the blanket away, rubbing his eyes as he remembered that he’d fallen asleep on the couch while watching something on the TV. He grabbed his phone and lit the screen up. It was barely over midnight, he’d fallen asleep two hours ago. He rubbed his face again, this time harder. Chanyeol only ever fell asleep so early when he was either incredibly exhausted or incredibly sad about something.

The door buzzed again before he could convince himself that he wasn’t sad about anything and he stood up, readying himself to insult whichever of his either dumb or drunk friends was on the other side of the door.

But when Chanyeol threw the door open, he melted into surprise, letting it drip all over the sleep still clouding his mind.

A white hoodie, worried eyes, the twist of a mouth reddened by biting, and the snapping open of a mouth full with panic.

"Hey," Baekhyun said, gaze jolting between Chanyeol’s eyes.

The first thought Chanyeol had was that this was easy. This whole situation made it too easy for Baekhyun to come at his door and ring the bell whenever he wanted it. He used to have a key to the door. Now he had to ring the bell. But he still remembered the digital code at the entrance of the building. Chanyeol hated it. Yet, when Baekhyun continued speaking, his body refused to move and close the door to his face.

That only made the spikes in Chanyeol’s throat burst through his skin in searing pain. That only made the hate in the pit of his chest boil with furor. Against Baekhyun but also against himself, because a full year had passed yet Chanyeol hadn’t been able to pulverize his heart into tiny pieces of rock he could scatter around and never see again. No. Baekhyun just had to come back and bring it right back to life and enable it to feel all the pain in the world all over again.

"I’ve been thinking since our last conversation," Baekhyun said and Chanyeol’s eyes dropped to his hands. The fabric on his arms stretched when he bunched up his sleeves into his fists, hiding his hands and holding the fabric in. "I think you misunderstood me. Maybe I talked wrong. Maybe I didn’t express myself correctly. Or maybe I used the wrong words. I don’t know. But you left so suddenly and I wanted to give you space but I can’t take it anymore because I think you got me totally wrong."

His words were almost a stutter of haste, all crammed together in their race to get out of Baekhyun’s head as soon as possible.

Chanyeol remained silent, body barely awake enough to register what was happening. He heard Baekhyun swallow, heard someone’s TV laughing through the hallway.

"I haven’t loved anyone else in ayear."

Chanyeol kept his silence. Kept his silence. Kept his silence.

Then, the sleep evaporated from his body, his eyes clouding with the steam of the anger sizzling in his stomach.

It was so easy for Baekhyun. Always so easy. So fucking easy to leave and then come back and then race him and then ring his bell in the middle fo the night and tell him he hadn’t loved anyone since he’d dumped Chanyeol.

And Chanyeol hated it. He hated it because he didn’t understand it, didn’t understand anything but the sudden need to close the door, go to sleep. But maybe he was already sleeping. Because he’d dreamed of this scenario way too many times already but now it was happening and it was ridiculous and didn’t make any sense and he wasn’t sure why Baekhyun had to rub it in so much.

He laughed, letting out a crooked, airy sound that splattered on the floor between them. Chanyeol took a step closer, stomping on something invisible, feeling the reverberation in a painful pulse of his heart.

"I don’t know what game you’re trying to play here, Baekhyun," he said, staring right into Baekhyun’s eyes and he wished, he genuinely wished his voice could sound angrier but all it did was echo smallness, depletion. A plea. For something clearer, something that didn’t hurt so much when he saw Baekhyun flinch at his words. "I don’t know why you’re back here, why you raced me, why you keep trying to talk to me. And why you’re saying these things to me. I don’t get it and I’m not sure I want to."

"I’m saying it because I mean it," Baekhyun said and he sounded so small, so fragile, so hurt and Chanyeol knew it better than anyone. Baekhyun was anything but small and fragile. And hurt.

People who willingly left others behind, walking away while trampling all over a heart they were supposed to care for, had no right to look so hurt.

Chanyeol laughed again, pitifully loud yet resonating empty as he looked up to the pristine ceiling for a moment.

"You lost the right to say these things to me. You can’t say that to me, Baekhyun." He stopped, shook his head, looking right into the light rippling into his eyes then looking at Baekhyun again. He looked so nice under the hallway’s fluorescent lights and so cozy in that white hoodie and Chanyeol wanted to hug him so bad and squeeze hard enough to make up for that entire year apart but Baekhyun had taken that right away from him and now he was acting like Chanyeol had been the one to push him out of his life. Unfair. It was so unfair Chanyeol felt his heart peeling into itself. He collected it all and turned it into rage. "Do you think it makes any difference? You dumped me and then haven’t found anyone else to love since then? What, you’ve been feeling miserable? Should I fucking cry for you?"

"Why do you always look for the worst in my words?" Baekhyun retorted, this time, instead of taking Chanyeol’s stabs silently like he’d done from the beginning. His voice echoed loudly in the empty hallway. Chanyeol didn’t want to do this here but he also didn’t want to invite Baekhyun into his house. He couldn’t bear the ghost he’d leave behind. Again. "You always create the worst possible meaning from what I tell you. I’m just saying I’ve never wanted anyone else but you. And I didn’t leave you because I didn’t love you any—"

"No," Chanyeol spat out even before Baekhyun could complete his last word. He shook his head, closed his eyes, rubbed them with the sole of his palms, repeating a string of _no_ ’s. He opened his eyes to the fissures of sadness on Baekhyun’s face. "You can’t say that to me. You’ve lost the right to say that, Baekhyun, you’ve disappeared for an entire year," he said, unable to keep his voice from rising towards the end.

"Can you please stop fucking acting like you didn’t tell me that you never wanted to hear from me again when I left?" Baekhyun said and his voice was a scream mashed into a whisper, a wheeze at the end of his sentence as he widened his eyes with desolation. "You could’ve messaged me too, through that whole year. Called me. Said something, anything to me."

Chanyeol felt himself dissolving, continuously, the puddle of pain in his stomach growing into a sea, submerging part of his heart. He didn’t have much of it left. Baekhyun hadn’t left much of it to him and here was, trying to sink Chanyeol down further. But until when? Until when? What would remain of Chanyeol in the end?

Nothing. There was barely anything left and if this went on, there would be nothing and Chanyeol couldn’t afford to do that a second time. He couldn’t live this a second time.

He shook his head, stepped back, agitation shaking his head one more time, harder as he avoided Baekhyun’s gaze.

"This is pointless," he whispered, unable to bring more assurance and volume to his voice. Baekhyun’s fists burst though their hiding place. His knuckles were almost as white as the sleevescovering them almost entirely in their wrinkles. "There is no point to us having this conversation right now."

"Oh, there we go," Baekhyun said, looking to the side, giving Chanyeol that same exasperated profile he’d already seen so many times.

He didn’t say it but Chanyeol knew what he was thinking. _You always say there’s no point rather than telling what you feel and why you’re upset when we should just fight and then get it over with._ Chanyeol knew it. He’d heard it so many times. He didn’t like it.

And he should get back in, he should close the door and put music on loud enough not to hear Baekhyun’s calls through the door. He should.

Instead, he narrowed his eyes and let the chaos broiling in his body speak for him again. "Did you really come all the way to my house just to criticize me?"

Baekhyun snapped his head back to him and raised both of his hands away from his body in a gesture of plea. "No, I fucking came here because I can’t bear not seeing you when you’re now just a few minutes away." His lips trembled at the end of his sentence, like they’d only realize what escaped them after it did. He pressed them together and straightened his shoulders. "I came here because I wanted to see you, you dumbass, isn't it obvious?"

"Why?"

The word made its way through the spikes in his throat before he could stop it. But he’d struggled to keep it in and even if he’d lost, his voice sounded roughened up enough.

Why would Baekhyun say all of that after leaving him that way?

He wanted to cry. He didn’t want to be strong. He wanted to curl into himself, squeeze his arms around his legs. He wanted to bawl his eyes out and tire himself into sleep and not wake up until it was night again. But he’d already done that too many times before too. He’d already lived this before and he was tired.

And maybe Baekhyun felt it. He moved a few centimeters closer, hand rising to hover between them.

"I’m sorry," he said, voice breaking down at the end. He pressed his lips together and Chanyeol wanted to cry even more because it looked like Baekhyun wanted to cry and that was the worst of it, that was something he couldn’t bear. "I’m so sorry I left. It was selfish. I know, I didn’t think about you when I took that decision. But I didn’t choose that ending. I didn’t think things would happen that way. I really didn’t choose it and neither did you."

He shook his head, let it tilt to the side. "It has to be someone’s fault, Baekhyun," he said, even though it pained him.

It had to be someone’s fault and since Baekhyun was the one to leave, then it made it Chanyeol’s fault. That he wasn’t enough to keep him here. It was Chanyeol’s fault.

"It doesn’t," he retorted, shaking his head, the corners of his eyes softening and deepening all at the same time. Always the same intensity, always the same power to liquefy every single one of Chanyeol’s thoughts with just one glance.

And Chanyeol knew that voice. He recognize the tenderness in it, the abandon of any and all problems, the molten resolution.

Baekhyun stepped closer again, arms starting to rise, and Chanyeol stepped back so suddenly it felt like a jump.

Baekhyun’s arms dropped again and his face cracked. It made Chanyeol feel cold, colder than the sear of a hug not given.

"Baekhyun," he said and there it was again. Boiling in the deepest part of him. Hurt. "You’re hurting me. It’s like a burn. You keep burning me," he said and Baekhyun started shaking his head, almost indiscernibly.

But Chanyeol could see it. Maybe he could see clearer than Baekhyun. There was no point to this.

"Yes. You do," Chanyeol said and he could see that Baekhyun didn’t like hearing this. Could see it in the way he wasn’t even saying anything, like it was too much for him to even retort something.

There really was no point to this. Things had happened. Pain had been lived. People had been left. The love had been drained and drowned. The ending had been survived once already.

There was no point living all of it all over again. Chanyeol wouldn’t put himself through that all over again. There was no way he could withstand that again.

"It’s like you’re a matchstick," he said when Baekhyun continued burying himself in his own silence.His eyes screamed to Chanyeol, however. He didn’t want to see it. "It’s like I’m a matchstick too." He saw Baekhyun closing his eyes for longer than a blink before opening them again. It didn’t clear them up. Chanyeol continued because it was better to cut this off now than wait. "It’s still the same. Nothing has changed in a year. There’s a reason why you left. We’re not supposed to enflame each other this way."

It had always been this way. But maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe that was why it hadn’t worked and never would. Because this was too much and even in their happiness, they always fought. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

"But I don’t want to be burned by anyone but you," Baekhyun whispered, voice almost disappearing under the weight of the sheer desire in his eyes. Not the carnal kind. The desire for this to be okay, to be normal, to be returned.

Chanyeol stepped back, feeling like he was carrying the weight of every single night heartbreak had killed for him, wrapped right around his ankles.

"I don’t want to burn you anymore," he said, voice widened by the sting of that decision. They’d burned each other too much. "I don’t want to be burned anymore." He’d been burned too much already. He’d almost succumbed to it. "We’ve seen this before," he said, gesturing with a hand between them, the other grabbing the door handle. "I know how it ends. It ends badly for me. For you too. I don’t want it."

Getting those words out felt like crawling his way out of a fire, nails burned off, skin scorched off, bones clawed out by ashes.

But that was the truth. That was what _should_ be the truth.

And when Baekhyun turned around and left without another word, shoulders shaking and fists trembling, Chanyeol closed the door and crumbled down under the weight of that truth, let himself sink into an ocean that was all too familiar to him. He needed to learn how to breathe underwater now. That was the only way he’d survive.

_Somewhere under heaven, laughter puffed up in clouds of softness._

_"I’m gonna die, stop."_

_Hiding under thick blankets, whiter than the snow wafting in the sky outside. Bare skin brushing bare skin and taking the smoothness in like the most delectable of sensations. Legs pushing and wrapping together again. A smile he couldn’t see accurately under the darkness of their covers, but one that shone brightly enough in his head to make up for it._

_A little piece of heaven. Chanyeol wiggled his fingers harder, tickling Baekhyun until they accidentally bumped their heads together when his body spasmed too hard._

_They laughed together. Baekhyun wrapped his arms around him and squeezed hard, mobilizing him._

_"That’s cheating," Chanyeol said, mumbling into Baekhyun’s hair, closing his eyes at the satiny sensation. Soft as an angel’s wings, he imagined._

_"Let’s eat sushi," was Baekhyun’s reply._

_Chanyeol snorted. This man loved food too much. More than he loved Chanyeol, probably. Although, he’d never told Chanyeol he loved him. No, not yet. That part was still far away. That chaos was still boiling somewhere they couldn’t even see yet._

_"Fine." A kiss puckering against soft hair. Fingers drumming elation into the bare skin of his back. "But let go of me so I can drink water."_

_"No," Baekhyun said, burrowing deeper into the nook of his neck._

_"Why," Chanyeol whined. Voice trickling into endearment._

_"We’re gonna eat sushi. You can’t drink water before or after eating fish or they’ll swim in your stomach which is the only scientific explanation as to why your stomach grumbles sometimes."_

_Silence, for a moment. Then, Baekhyun’s laugh elevating and pulling Chanyeol’s voice along._

_  
Ridiculous. The way Chanyeol’s heart was melting into itself with every word exchanged with this human being._

_"Stop with the stupid jokes," Chanyeol threatened, bursting his hands out of Baekhyun’s embrace and tickling him all over again._

_"It’s not a joke, what the hell," Baekhyun screamed, body twisting into escape, hands digging into Chanyeol’s skin._

_The laughter only stopped when their lips aligned into a kiss. Right at that moment, Chanyeol closed his eyes, smiled into the other’s mouth, and felt his bed morphing into a private beach somewhere in a faultless part of the universe._

A week passed and Chanyeol was in the middle of another crowd, engine drawling pleasure as he stepped on the gas and caught up to his friends, flying away from an intersection they’d darkened with the tires markings of cars drifting in circle.

Street lights, blue and red variations running around with alarm, headlights turning off as cars stopped and hid in parking lots, playing dead.

Chanyeol looked behind him, trying to see if his friends were in the same spot but he couldn’t see anything. Sighing, he grabbed his phone and waited for a message about the police having veered off to another direction.

He sat there, in complete silence, not even music keeping him company. He hated these moments. Their purpose tonight wasn’t racing, just having fun and yet, it reminded him too much that racing was against the law for a perfectly good reason, people’s safety. But Chanyeol was good at ignoring the bad and moving straight in the same direction.

He shook his head at himself, slapped a finger on the wheel, left it there. He wasn’t that anymore.

Instead, he was a Chanyeol that had been tensed for the past three days because he hadn’t heard about Baekhyun ever again and now a whole week had passed since their discussion at Chanyeol’s door and he had no idea whether Baekhyun was still in the same city as him or not.

He didn’t know what he wished. Besides maybe Sehun or Jongdae at least having enough information to share with him. But they didn’t. And Chanyeol was left looking for him in grocery store lines, in stair corners of his apartment building, in the audience of his races, in his own head every time he tried falling asleep or tried keeping awake.

Maybe he’d hurt him too much with his words from that last time in front of his apartment. He bent his finger, dug a nail into the hard surface of the wheel. Maybe he’d been too mean again.

He turned his head and looked out of his window at the cars passing on the road. He didn’t like this. Still no message. He didn’t want this anymore. His gaze hooked on two elderly men walking by under the one lamplight flickering in the corner of the street. He really didn’t want this anymore.

His heart started beating too fast again, anxiety twisting something in his stomach. It wouldn’t let go for at least an hour. He’d been this way the whole week and Chanyeol didn’t want this anymore. This was too much for him. He dug his nail harder into the wheel.

All these emotions and sensations and musings and circling thoughts were too strong for him. Maybe Chanyeol hadn’t felt like he was truly living this past year. Maybe he’d spent it laughing less, doing less things, trying his hardest to even pull himself out of bed and function some days, maybe he’d really barely even lived properly. But at least, he’d lived without feeling like he was on the brink of incineration with every breath he took.

That was the feeling he was chained to right now. Baekhyun had that effect on him. Made him feel too much. Made him feel like nothing would ever go wrong, and then made Chanyeol question every single thought he’d ever heard.

Was it wrong? Was it hurtful? Was it selfish? Was he a bad person for being jealous? Was he dramatic? Could he say why he was upset or was it nonsensical for him to be upset? What did Baekhyun want? If Chanyeol had changed the tone of his sentence, would it have made a difference? Would they have avoided that fight too?

Baekhyun had said he wanted him. Chanyeol could still see it, hear it, live when he closed his eyes. Desperate eyes, hesitating hands, hair ruffled by the fluorescent lights of his building’s hallways. He snapped his eyes open when his heart wailed too loudly into every beat.

Still no message. He needed to turn the car on, he needed to drive far away, he needed to make the loudest noise possible and impress the most people possible. He needed the thrill and the danger to lock him in and take his mind off everything else that was happening around.

But he was sitting in his car in the dark, all alone, and when he closed his eyes, he could still see the blurriness of Baekhyun’s eyes as he looked at him pleadingly. _I haven’t loved anyone else in a year._

He parted his lips, sucked in big gulp of air, leaning his head against the headrest of his seat and pushed until it hurt just a little. He stopped. He didn’t like this. He didn’t want this anymore. He’d said it then and he meant it now.

There weren’t only bad things. There were so many good things in what they used to have. But good things didn’t always mean feeling good _all the time_.

He opened his eyes, stared at something he couldn’t even see, felt something dropping in the depths of his body. The crash hurt, he tried to swallow it down but felt himself being slowly devoured by it instead. All over again. The problem was that maybe Chanyeol had started aching for Baekhyun even before he knew what pain was.

He’d always wanted Baekhyun. He furrowed his eyebrows, tapped a beat on the wheel. No. He hadn’t. There was a Chanyeol before Baekhyun. Too far away. Forgotten because Chanyeol had kept wanting Baekhyun even after he had him to himself. It was as if that yearning was part of him, poured into his creation with no possibility of retraction.

But he’d tried his best. He’d tried killing that part of himself for a year and just when he was starting to see success and progress, just when he’d finally started hoping that Baekhyun was happy whenever he weaved himself into Chanyeol’s thoughts, Baekhyun had to come back.

Chanyeol’s hand jumped away from the wheel. His fingernail was starting to hurt, he’d pressed too much and now an imperfection in the shape of his nail was etched onto the wheel.

He hated this. He hated that pain. He hated that all this pain enthralled hatred and the hatred entailed sanction and he was being sanctioned over and over again and maybe, just maybe hatred and retribution were actually crafted at the same exact time.

His phone lit up then, a message of safety popping on the screen. Chanyeol turned his car on and drove away, throwing himself into a pace fast enough for all those thoughts to catch up to him.

Another week, another crowd of people living for a thrill Chanyeol was more than happy to fuel by pressing on the gas as hard as possible.

Which he was currently doing, because he was incredibly late to the circuit where the race was happening. It was a rare occasion, they didn’t often get to do this in an actual circuit built for it. Most of the time, it happened in relatively empty streets, most of the time the chase turned into a team race against the police when they ventured into more popular roads and highways.

This time, Chanyeol was late because his sister had kept him on the phone for way too long. She was getting married soon. The decision had been taken last night and she’d spent a good hour talking about it with Chanyeol and sending him every single picture she had of the proposal her now-fiancee had organized for her. He didn’t even feel bad for being late, didn’t even rush his movements. Tonight, Chanyeol was the happiest person on earth because his sister was the happiest woman on earth.

Everyone was supposed to meet up at the entrance and go in together, an odd kind of organization but one that made sense. This wasn’t official. It was the middle of the night and it was happening merely because the owner of the circuit liked holding bets. The house always won, especially when the law wasn't there to supervise it.

When Chanyeol pulled up to the circuit, the crowd was small but bustling enough. He got out of his car and realized that there wasn’t as much agitation as there should be. He left his car along the dozen others and furrowed his eyebrows when no one noticed his arrival. He twirled his car keys around then held on to them by the keychain, pressing the tip of his fingers against the red and orange flame-like figure, with big eyes and a piece of wood in its fiery arms. He felt light and and carefree, already anticipating the moment his blood would fire up when that race would start.

However, when he advanced to the crowd, he noticed that it was much too silent for an audience and much too crowded in the shape of a circle, most people focused on something at the center of it.

"And what are you going to do about it? Cry like a fucking two-year old throwing a tantrum on the floor?" a harsh voice snapped sparks into the air, crackling it with the whispers of the people around. He recognized it instantly, his heart producing a few crackles of its own.

He parted through and that was when he realized why no one had noticed his belated arrival. Right at the center, Baekhyun shone through with the fire in his eyes, pouring it right into the fuel of the person standing much too close to him.

"I’ll just celebrate because a late opponent leans messy opponent which probably means a shitty opponent. I’ve already won this race," the guy said and Chanyeol pushed through the last person blocking him from the center. Today’s opposite racer, Wonho, looked as tasteless as ever, slithering his intimidation even closer to Baekhyun’s face. They were talking about him. "And what are you doing here anyway? Finished fucking around in messier cities?"

Chanyeol saw the line of Baekhyun’s jaw tightening but before he could say anything, something propelled Chanyeol towards Wonho and he grabbed his arm, losing control of his entire body to the locomotion that anger kick started in him. He pulled Wonho away from Baekhyun, meeting those nasty eyes instead and not appreciating the arrogance in them.

"Watch your mouth," was all he said, words clear even though his teeth felt like steel ready to snap and bite an annoying head off. Nobody could talk to Baekhyun like that, especially not right before his eyes.

He glanced sideways, meeting Baekhyun’s eyes, seeing them widened with surprise.

"What? Did I lie?" Chanyeol snapped his gaze back to Wonho when he spoke again, voice dripping with defiance. He could hear nothing but silence around them, everyone was watching and that was the only reason why Wonho was doing this. Just like he’d done a dozen times before. "Why are you even taking his defense anyway?"

Chanyeol bit down on nothing in his mouth, clenching his teeth together, gripping the other’s arm harder, unable to stop himself even once he heard the crunching of the leather on the piece of clothing. He realized that the other was right but he didn’t stop, didn’t back down, barely even blinked as he glared at Wonho.

He kept doing this, because it was just the way it was. He knew Baekhyun could very well defend himself, was fast and even very good with his fists, but that wasn’t the question right now. Nobody could say such degrading things. Chanyeol would defend Baekhyun whether he was in the room or not. Baekhyun would defend Chanyeol whether he was in the room or not.

Wonho snorted, a despicable sound that made Chanyeol wish he had less control over himself.

"Just answer me," Wonho said, voice lowered down, face trying to intimidate Chanyeol’s in closeness. Chanyeol didn’t move a centimeter away. "Didn’t he dump you just to go and fuck around?"

That was when the control was ejected out of Chanyeol’s body, right at the same time as he plunged a hand into Wonho’s chest and pushed him so hard the other stumbled back as someone gasped behind him.

"Say that one more fucking time," Chanyeol said, voice low and grumbling harder than a broken engine. His hands dropped to his side, curling into heavy fists he could dump on a face at any moment. Wonho did that infuriating thing where he let out a laugh, quiet air stinking with disdain and Chanyeol felt something in him snapping. "I’m going to—"

"Chanyeol," a voice said behind him, right as a hand wrapped around his arm and pulled him back.

Chanyeol shut off at the touch. It radiated heat into him, right under the two different layers of clothes he was wearing, recollection seared and his body reacted to the touch with a spasm. He turned around and met the darkened glints in Baekhyun’s eyes, the shadow of his frown.

"There’s no point in fighting, don’t listen to him," Baekhyun said, looking at him with an intensity that made Chanyeol feel like adding the weight of his own breath to his chest would make it cave into itself.

Standing there, black clothes, black hair, and a black kind of magic trapping Chanyeol in his eyes, Baekhyun was looking up at him. Holding him back from fighting for his honor or his dignity or whatever. Whatever, as long as it was for Baekhyun.

As long as it was for Baekhyun.

But there was no point to this. Baekhyun’s words echoed belatedly in his head, that calm voice, that regular, unbreakable tone. There was no point to this because Chanyeol remembered right then that Wonho wasn’t entirely wrong.

Baekhyun did leave him. Baekhyun did run hours away from him. Baekhyun did disappear for a year.

And there was Chanyeol, stupid, pathetic, pointlessly devoted Chanyeol, ready to fight someone for Baekhyun. As long as it was for Baekhyun. But why? Why was Chanyeol defending him? _Who_ was Chanyeol even defending?

This wasn’t his Baekhyun, his teammate, his partner, his defender and defendant. This was just a Baekhyun. Who was he even defending now?

The realization ripped his throat apart just as he unstuck himself from Baekhyun’s hold. Baekhyun’s flinch reverberated into Chanyeol’s heart.

He turned around, feeling himself combusting little by little. He’d been combusting for a year. Endlessly. It just didn’t want to end and Chanyeol had forgotten it in the heat of the action but it came back. It would always come back. Because history had already been written and Chanyeol had already lived it in his head over a hundred times and nothing could erase it.

So he turned to the people watching them, feeling completely exposed, hating the way all these people had heard what Wonho had said about Baekhyun. Then, he turned to Wonho, to that sly grin still scotched on his face. Chanyeol wanted to tear it off.

"Let’s just take this to the road."

Chanyeol’s voice elevated in the thick silence hanging over everyone standing there, prying itself in the lights adoring the stadium. Movement came back to the audience and everyone started going inside, Chanyeol throwing one last spiteful glance at his opponent before going in as well, walking right past the makeshift betting booth, giving his keys to the responsables on place so his car could be brought in.

Maybe fighting wasn’t the best thing to do. Maybe Baekhyun didn’t want him to. Maybe Chanyeol shouldn’t.

Instead, he did whatever he was best at.

Audiences, blinding lights, cheers for and against him, nasty glances from rivals, engines roaring, tires smoking, a departure sign, car and body wheezing through the air.

Chanyeol took this to the road and won the humiliation of his opponent.

He left as soon as the score was settled, not staying long enough to see that Baekhyun had been watching every part of it while never, ever looking at anything else.

Chanyeol kept thinking about it, throughout the rest of the night and even up until the following night.

He felt a bit ridiculous. He’d jumped to Baekhyun’s defense so quickly, it was stupid. Baekhyun could very well defend himself and he even knew that sometimes, Baekhyun would rather lose a fight on his own than win because somebody else did the work for him.

But it was so hard. So hard not to act with Baekhyun the way he used to. How else was he supposed to act when nothing in him had changed for Baekhyun?

He bunched up his thin blanket into a ball and hugged it to his chest, knee bumping into one of the pillows on the couch and throwing it off to the floor. Denying it would be stupid. Chanyeol didn’t like denying things or trying to convince himself of the contrary of whatever he truly wanted or felt.

He knew it very well, that thinking about Baekhyun so much, wanting to run away as soon as they met, jumping to his defense wherever someone said something bad about him, his entire body going into overdrive so often – he knew that all of this meant he wasn’t entirely over him.

Despite working towards it, despite even thinking that he actually had gotten over him for the past two months. All it took was Baekhyun crashing right into his life again and there was Chanyeol, so easily carried into a drive that he knew wasn’t even safe. This time, he had to fasten his seat belt. This time, he had to get out of the car as soon as possible.

But then. Right then. His phone lit up with a message and Chanyeol forgot to even locate a seatbelt to keep himself alive.

He closed his eyes for a moment, seeing the light of the TV shift behind his closed eyelids.

Baekhyun hadn’t messaged him even once since he’d come back. Maybe Chanyeol coming to his defense had given him the confidence to do it now.

Chanyeol could ignore it. Could take his phone and write a lengthy message to explain to Baekhyun why they should just stop whatever this was right now. Could instead write a single _don’t talk to me ever again_ and be done with it. Could change his number and gather his clothes and disappear the way Baekhyun had done to him.

Instead, he opened his eyes, sighed through his nose, grabbed his phone and let himself go on another stroll near dangerous waters with Baekhyun. Maybe they weren’t done. Maybe there was still something they could see while walking, driving along the road together. Just maybe.

He didn’t know why he so suddenly was so hopeful. Maybe because he hadn’t seen Baekhyun a while now. If two days could be considered a while.

His heart beat slowly but loudly, thumping wariness into him as he unlocked his phone to read the messages.

_I have decided that I want this so I’m gonna work for it_

_but working alone isn’t fun so here’s some work for you_

_"if you cry in my car, we’ll be have to be here all night"_

_I’ll wait for you there If you can find where that memory is_

Chanyeol’s eyes remained stuck to those few sentences. Endearment bubbled in his chest. Baekhyun still texted every sentences of his separately. Then, sorrow fissured through that feeling. _If you cry in my car, then we’ll have to be here all night._

Of course Chanyeol would find where that is. Of course Chanyeol remembered. But the fact that Baekhyun remembered it too, it made him feel like he’d absorbed the blanket he was squeezing against his stomach. It was both comforting and felt like an intrusion.

Maybe he shouldn’t go. Maybe this was the point where this divided into two possibilities. Either Chanyeol broke his own heart by killing off all the possibilities he didn’t want to imagine, or he dived right in and waited for Baekhyun to break his heart some point in the future, probably not that far away.

His phone lit up again with another string of messages.

_and if you can manage to arrive_

_you’re probably already in your baggy pyjamas frowning at a serial killer docu_

_so you’ll be late_

_you also have a pretty shitty memory_

Chanyeol’s lips parted at the surprise attack.

That was enough to fire up Chanyeol. He let go of the blanket, accepted the challenge, and stood up.

Baekhyunthought he had this over him. Baekhyun thought he’d already won whatever this challenge was.

Chanyeol paused the documentary he’d been watching, cutting of a therapist’s analysis of this one french mass murderer.

On his way out, he chose not to reply to Baekhyun and just make him wait with no clue. Maybe tiny, inoffensive revenges like that could still be okay between them.

_Somewhere between insecurity and confusion, Baekhyun was lost. And it pained Chanyeol that no matter how many words he weaved together, it wasn’t long enough to wrap reassurance around him._

_"Baekhyun, if you cry in my car right now, we’ll have to be here all night. I’m telling you right now." A wobbly, airy smile. Chanyeol’s hand raising towards it, so he could poke a puffy cheek with the tip of his finger. "I won’t let you go. So you decide right now if you want to stay with me trapped in my amazing car or not."_

_That was enough. Chanyeol didn’t know whether it was supposed to be a threat or reassurance. He kind of felt like he wanted to wail for Baekhyun even before Baekhyun started wailing for himself. But that was enough._

_A head lowered even further down. Eyes closing and letting their shine drip out of them. Chanyeol felt it pooling around his heart, suffocating it. He still brought his hand up again, catching a tear on its track down smooth skin, wishing he could absorb it away from Baekhyun so he wouldn’t feel it anymore. So he would never have to feel it again._

_"If you wanted to spend the night with me so bad, you could’ve just said so. No need to cry about it."_

_Baekhyun raised his head, throwing it back against the headrest just as his fist blindly few sideways to punch Chanyeol in the arm with no conviction._

_A smile. Muddy. Pretty eyes. Wet and reddened. "I’m not doing it on purpose." Sniffles. A whiny, stretched voice._

_Chanyeol would probably die for this man. Without being asked to._

_It became too much. He looked away for a moment, looking in front of him, through the windshield. Lights from the streets, from the buildings, neons and homely hues. All very still. It made Chanyeol’s heart feel incredibly agitated in comparison._

_"it’s okay," he whispered, looking back at Baekhyun._

_"It’s not." A hand coming up to rub at an eye with annoyance, scribbly movements until eyebrows were furrowed. "I’m tired of this."_

_Chanyeol swallowed, stared at Baekhyun. How he wished he could extinguish every bad thing in this one person’s life. Just this one person. He didn’t care about the rest._

_"Of what?"_

_Baekhyun closed his eyes for a moment, dropped his hands to his lap. Chanyeol looked at them, then shrouded one of those fists with his hand, protecting it from the tears still tumbling down. He felt a drop splattering against one of his knuckles._

_The hand he was covering loosened up under his as Baekhyun remained silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gritted into pain. Chanyeol felt the tiny sparkles of it scattering on his own existence._

_"Of driving my car so fucking fast and always being ahead of everyone I race against."Chanyeol felt something deep inside of him breaking apart. Baekhyun hated himself. He could tell by the way he was grinding his teeth and looking straight ahead without probably even seeing anything. He could tell by the scratches in his voice, the torture he was inflicting himself with the recurring thoughts. "I’m always ahead but I never have a single clue where I’m even heading."_

_Chanyeol closed his eyes for a moment, pressed his lips together, swallowed. "Do you have to be heading somewhere?"_

_Why did it matter? Why was Baekhyun looking for somewhere to go? Chanyeol felt pretty good right here. What made it so different for Baekhyun?_

_"Chanyeol," Baekhyun said, tears cut off but voice left depleted. Their eyes met and Chanyeol wanted to take back what he said. Even with Chanyeol’s hand on his, Baekhyun looked so lonely in the lack of light inside the car. "We’ve been racing for a year and a half, that’s all we’ve been doing. Aren’t you tired of it?"_

_Chanyeol didn’t say anything. No. No, he wasn’t tired of racing with or against Baekhyun. He wasn’t tired of waking up with no special purpose but to see Baekhyun still sleeping next to him. He wasn’t tired of not thinking about much because he knew his parents were there to back him up if needed. He wasn’t tired of the audience and the cheers and the smoke and the tires screaming._

_But maybe this wasn’t about that. This was something else that Baekhyun felt. And there was nothing wrong with it. In this somewhere, Chanyeol still thought, still convinced himself that there was nothing wrong with it._

_"Aren’t you tired of it?" Baekhyun repeated under Chanyeol’s silence. His hand turned beneath Chanyeol’s, their palms completing each other’s lines. "Of sleeping, waking up, meeting our friends, watching movies, laughing at opponents, racing, winning or losing, going to sleep, and then reliving the same thing every day?" Baekhyun snorted, looking down again. His hair was too long, it covered his eyelashes, didn’t cover the disdain he held for who he was. "And that’s only when we have a race. when we don’t have a race we don’t do anything. We don’t even work because we have our parents to rely on." He turned his head to Chanyeol. Half of his face was lit up by the lights around them, the other half was swallowed by darkness. "Aren’t you tired of going nowhere?"_

_He wasn’t. Chanyeol liked where he was. Because Baekhyun was where he was._

_He looked down, furrowed his eyebrows. That was the moment, the moment this somewhere turned into something it should have never been._

_Did this imply that Baekhyun didn’t like where he was even though Chanyeol was there?_

_He shook his head, scattering the thought away. This wasn’t about him. This was about Baekhyun feeling like he had no purpose since they’d dropped school more than a year and a half ago. No, this wasn’t about him and he needed Baekhyun to feel better again._

_"If you want to go somewhere, you’re more than good enough to go," Chanyeol said, curving his fingers until he could properly hold Baekhyun’s hand. He’d held it hundreds of times before. He still squeezed it like he’d been depraved of it for a lifetime. Baekhyun squeezed back, gaze blurring up right into Chanyeol’s eyes. "Wherever you want to go. And I’ll always be here to accompany you. But after these words I’m pretty sure you should go and become some professor who loves philosophy or poetry or something."`_

_Baekhyun laughed, small piece by small piece, wobbly and rippled._

_"Don’t make fun of me," he threatened, pushing against Chanyeol’s shoulder with his free hand._

_Chanyeol laughed, the sound turning into a yelp when Baekhyun moved his hand up and tried tugging on Chanyeol’s ear._

_Pulling himself away, Chanyeol tried to squeeze his ear against his shoulder to protect it as he reached down with a hand. "Wait, wait—"_

_"No, you can’t escape," Baekhyun said, hand finally grabbing his earlobe, face morphing into victory._

_"No, no," Chanyeol said, scrunching his whole face but smiling beneath it. "Oh look, what’s this?" he said, hand managing to reach the glove box and pull the lid open._

_A pack of candy tumbled down, followed along by a smaller chips bag. Baekhyun rounded his features in surprise and turned his attention to the small army of snacks Chanyeol had shoved into the compartment earlier today. He’d come prepared, as soon as Baekhyun had told him that he didn’t feel well and they should go for a drive tonight._

_And when Baekhyun gave him that big smile of his, the one that reduced the size of his eyes but increased their dazzle, when he pulled Chanyeol into a tight hug and whispered a thanks into his ear, Chanyeol still thought this was a problem that could be solved with comforting words and delicious food._

When Chanyeol arrived to the scene, nothing much had changed from what he could still relive in his mind so smoothly.

He hadn’t returned here in over a year but it was still the same welcome when he pulled his car up the hill and turned the engine off, eyes already subjugated by the light show down ahead. The trees around were rustling a little with the wind, leaves enjoying the fresh summer air. Chanyeol had gotten out in a t-shirt only, not bothering to grab a jacket or a hoodie on his way out. He’d probably also not bothered to grab his senses either, before running to Baekhyun.

Being here squeezed something in his stomach a little and Chanyeol got out of his car, eyes riveted on Baekhyun’s car, parked a few steps ahead. The same car that had won over him.

Last time they were here, it had been winter. They’d been inside the car. Now, it was summer and it wasn’t too cold to do anything but admire the view from inside a heated car. Now, Chanyeol felt his insides liquefying into warmth when he laid his eyes on Baekhyun’s hunched figure up ahead. He was leaning against the handrail, arms crossed on the wood and gaze looking ahead at the view.

A black shirt hugged his shoulders, the fabric stretching on his wide back, his head tilted to let the wind whistle into his hair and pull it to an almost motionless dance.

Chanyeol observed the view and felt it squeeze his heart until admiration trickled from it, flaring his insides. He wished that was the effect of the lights, not of a different thing he was admiring.

Baekhyun turned his head when Chanyeol got close enough.

"I’m surprised by your quickness," he said, half of his face visible only. There was no streetlights up here. Nothing but Baekhyun’s smile, the contentment on his lips glimmering on the curve of it. "You didn’t even reply to my texts."

"You’re not," Chanyeol answered, planting himself next to Baekhyun but making sure he was at a distance that could be judged as normal. He looked down at the emptiness beneath them, the road void of any cars more than two dozen meters bellow. "You knew I would come because you know exactly how to trigger me."

There was no challenge Chanyeol wouldn’t accept, especially coming from Baekhyun.

"Looks like I do," Baekhyun said and, hearing the satisfaction on the lowness of his voice, Chanyeol chose not to look at him. Instead, he rested his hands on the handrail, palms curving around the wood.

But he didn’t resist for much longer when Baekhyun remained silent. Chanyeol turned to him and met a grin, bunched up cheeks, tiny lines around the eyes. His favorite Baekhyun smile. The one that looked like he’d won the best possible prize on earth.

Tonight’s prize would be Chanyeol’s presence. Something twisted in his stomach. He didn’t want to think that way. He didn’t want to delude himself into feeling anything.

"What are we doing here?" he asked then, laying his gaze on the lights ahead. He watched trains of headlights slowly curving and straightening again along the roads far away.

"Nothing," Baekhyun replied, straightening himself to hold the wood the same way Chanyeol did. A sigh fell from his voice. "I just wanted to see you."

Chanyeol turned away, closed his eyes, pushed himself away until he was looking away from the lights. He rested his back against the wood and looked at the back of the rearview mirror in Baekhyun’s car. Or at least, where he imagined it was, behind the thick taint of the glass.

He spoke before he could convince himself to. "Looks like you did some growing in the past year," he said, making it a point to keep his voice unbiased towards any particular sentiment. "You used to never know, or at least tell, what you wanted."

He heard a small puff of air leaving Baekhyun’s mouth, not offended but maybe a little pleased. Chanyeol wasn’t sure he could read Baekhyun as well as before.

"Well, I liked the fact that you could tell me what I wanted even before I knew what I wanted." His gaze was as steady and tender as his voice when Chanyeol turned his gaze to him. Baekhyun had turned his body towards him, leaving his side against the wood. "Just by looking into my eyes, sometimes."

"Oh, did I do that?" was all Chanyeol allowed Baekhyun to hear from him. He furrowed his eyebrows to further empathize his act.

Chanyeol remembered every second of it, of knowing Baekhyun as if they’d been created from the same water and soil, then divided into two different beings at birth. The wind blew a bit colder and Chanyeol brought a hand up to rub warmth into his upper arm.

"What?" Baekhyun laughed and it shouldn’t be normal for such a natural, simple, small sound to make Chanyeol’s heart twirl in his chest after so much time appart. That effect should’ve faded a long time ago. "You don’t remember?" The way he gave him a look, head tilted down and eyebrows raised, suggested that he didn’t believe it one second.

Chanyeol felt his heart skipping on dangerous waters, turned his body towards the void again, grabbed the handrail and gripped it hard.

"I can’t seem to, it was so long ago" Chanyeol said and despite himself, his voice had a teasing edge to it. "I’ve watched many different people’s life through anime since then, you see. Too much information."

"Or maybe you’re just getting old," Baekhyun retorted instantly, carefreeness in his voice.

Chanyeol could still feel the intensity of his stare on him. He dug his teeth into his lower lip the slightest bit. He was itching to turn his head and return the gaze. He succumbed to the pressure in his body and looked at Baekhyun. He didn’t meet his gaze because Baekhyun was looking at his lips.

Freeing his lips from his teeth, he felt satisfaction dawdling heat into his body. He felt too big in his small body. He felt a tension between them, one he couldn’t help but appreciate a bit too much even tough it sent jolts down his whole body.

He shouldn’t. But he couldn’t step away from it so he continued, as if nothing was wrong. Maybe nothing was really wrong.

"No, no," he said and maybe nothing was really wrong because Baekhyun already started smiling before he even got his counterattack out of his head. "I perfectly remember, for example, that one time you were staring at me so hard at the beginning of a race that you missed the starting signal and ended up barely catching up to the adversary."

Baekhyun’s face morphed into embarrassment even before Chanyeol got the whole reminder out. Scrunched up features, head shaking and body shifting from one foot to another. That was enough for Chanyeol to laugh at him, light and just as carefree. Maybe there really was nothing wrong.

Baekhyun narrowed his eyes at him, grabbed something from his pocket. "I have a key," he said, shoving the house keys right into Chanyeol’s face. He moved back, laughing even harder, putting his hand in front of his face to protect himself. "I will let this key kiss your car very longly and strongly," he threatened, although there was nothing convincing about it when the grin on his face animated amusement into his every word.

"Fine, fine," Chanyeol still gave up, because he’d already won in the end. He’d made Baekhyun laugh and embarrassed him. That was the only victory he wanted out of this.

Baekhyun huffed at him, shoving his keys back into his hoodie’s pocket. "Also, I won that race in the end so did it really matter?" he grumbled, which sent Chanyeol into a laughing fit all over again.

It wasn’t even that funny. Nothing about this was even that funny. But he felt a bit too light, a bit too up in the air, a bit too far away from the reality he constantly kept thinking about.

In that moment, Baekhyun didn’t feel like a former lover who’d broken his heart. Chanyeol didn’t feel like a lesser being than he was supposed to be, someone left behind by another person.

In that moment, they were just Baekhyun and Chanyeol, talking about how many cars there were in the streets, about how many times Baekhyun came to the races late, about whether Chanyeol had really been watching a serial killer document when he’d gotten Baekhyun’s message.

And it was odd to talk about Baekhyun without thinking about their background. There was nothing between them at that point, nothing but the hidden stars up above them, the two cars parked a few steps away, the motionless and treading lights beneath them, the barricade under their hands, against their stomach, their sides, their back.

They stayed up on that hill together for a long part of the night, talking about anything and everything and especially the things that they’d missed about each other’s life.

Baekhyun had a lot of dramatic updates to give Chanyeol about his friends and family. Chanyeol listened to every single story. He’d been deprived from them for so long, from the twists in those small lives and the liveliness with which Baekhyun could tell them.

Perhaps he’d also been deprived from listening to Baekhyun talk through the night for too long. He made up for it by never straying his gaze away, not allowing any thought in his head to deviate his attention from his favorite storyteller. And driver. And cook. And opponent. And everything.

It was so, so easy to get caught up in Baekhyun. Like Baekhyun was a chain of events on his own, the gears of a machine Chanyeol never knew how he’d ended up hooked to. It was too easy.

But Chanyeol didn’t think about that now. He just listened.

"If you spill even a single drop on this carpet, I will have you hit by a car," was the threat Sehun held out to Chanyeol just as he put the bottle of beer on the low table with a low thud.

"Why not just drive the car yourself?" Baekhyun replied from where he was trying to log into his Netflix account on the big TV screen.

"I’m a busy man," Sehun said, arms raising with a flourish as he twirled on his feet and dropped on the one armchair perpendicular to the couch.

"Can I please just drink my beer in this," Chanyeol mumbled, narrowing his eyes at Sehun just as Baekhyun snorted.

"I don’t remember my password," Baekhyun mumbled then, seemingly talking to himself more than to the other two people in the room.

Which was good. Chanyeol was too busy giving Sehun looks about his choice of spot. Sehun grinned teasingly and moved his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug just to piss Chanyeol off further and make it all the more obvious that he did deliberately choose to make Baekhyun and Chanyeol sit on the same couch.

Another day, another chain of events. Chanyeol didn’t know how he’d ended up right in this spot.

Things were good between Baekhyun and him. Since they’d hung out at their spot a week ago, they’d been talking. They hadn’t met in private again but Baekhyun had texted him every day about the most trivial things and after the first three days, Chanyeol had started texting him about every single thing that went though his mind as well.

Their conversations went from the fact that Chanyeol was too lazy to go and buy a new bottle of shampoo to Baekhyun’s newly starting tour around the city to find the perfect place to rent and make a garage out of it. He’d been a bit stressed out about that lately.

Things were good. A bit too good. But Chanyeol didn’t think too much bout it, he’d rather enjoy the best friend he’d lost a long time ago and recovered only now. They could be friends, just friends. Even though Baekhyun did say some things he wasn’t sure how to interpret. _I decided I want this so I’m going to work for it._

Chanyeol did not know how things had taken this turn. Or maybe he did. He’d just had a normal conversation with Baekhyun and remembered how amazing it was to just talk to him. Without anger, without feelings, without insecurity and too much involvement. And right now, things were frail, but they were enjoyable.

"Okay, we’re in!"

Baekhyun’s cheer pulled him out of his thoughts and he looked up at him. With no hesitation, Baekhyun moved to plop down beside him. With no hesitation, Baekhyun sat close enough for his shoulder to brush Chanyeol as he did so. With no hesitation, Chanyeol’s heart veered to the left and Chanyeol could feel it close, so close to bursting through the barricades protecting it from the cliff.

With no hesitation, he ignored it.

"This is a bad idea because Sehun will never log out of your account, just saying," he said, side-eyeing Sehun who made a funny sound when he suddenly unstuck his lips from his dark green bottle.

"I will not even deny it," he huffed, to which Baekhyun shook his head. "This is payment for all the beers this guy stole from my fridge the past three weeks."

Chanyeol mustered up his best judgmental look and directed it at Baekhyun. "You turn into an alcoholic now?"

He’d known Sehun and Baekhyun had been hanging out since he was back. Sehun and Jongdae were good friends of Baekhyun as much as they were Chanyeol’s. He was glad Baekhyun had a least those two when just until a week ago, Chanyeol was busy being too spiteful to treat him decently.

"He has no proof of what he’s saying," Baekhyun defended himself, not even looking at them as he scrolled through the Netflix catalogue. The slight tug of his lips upwards was enough for Chanyeol to know he was amused.

"Well, of course I didn’t keep a stock of all the bottles we’ve drunk," Sehun grumbled.

"Then you literally have no proof of what you’re saying" Chanyeol said, this time, raising a playful eyebrow at his friend.

"There we go again, back to teaming up against your one and only amazing friend," Sehun mumbled, although Chanyeol could see that he was smiling as he brought his bottle up to his mouth again.

Choosing not to say anything, Chanyeol merely smiled, leaning forward to grab his beer from the table.

"Obviously," Baekhyun said, voice quiet but content in its vibrations.

When he rested his back into the couch again, his arm nudged up into Baekhyun’s.

The tepidity of it didn’t evaporate even for a single second throughout the whole evening they spent all three of them together, just like all the somewheres in time Chanyeol was happy in. Right alongside Baekhyun.

_I started watching the movies you told me about_

Holding his phone in one hand to read the message, Chanyeol looked for his house keys with the other hand. He froze for a moment when his pocket came out empty, wondering if he’d forgotten them at his parents’ house.

He furrowed his eyebrows and grabbed his phone with both hands to reply to Baekhyun.

_which ones?_

Then, he slipped his phone in his back-pocket and looked for his keys with both hands. He found them on the inside pocket of his jacket and shook his head at himself as he opened his door.

_back to the future!_

_you said it was a huge classic and you’d block me if I didn’t watch it_

_the things I do for some conversation_

Chanyeol dug his teeth into his lower lip but that didn’t prevent them from stretching into a happy arc. He closed the door behind him, toed his shoes off, left them at the entrance, and headed right to the kitchen.

_you’re welcome_

_how is is though?_

He scrunched his nose at the typo but didn’t bother sending a correction right behind. Putting his phone down on the black of the counter, he took two steps to the side and hung his whole body on the fridge door, pulling to open it.

He stood there, glancing at his phone lighting up on the counter, before looking back at the inside of his fridge. It was pretty filled up, Chanyeol liked having all kinds of things at his disposition for whenever he decided to cook something, which was pretty often. That was the best way of releasing some stress, for him.

Though, he’d ingurgitated too much food at his parents house, his mother continuously filling him up with tea and then snacks and then dinner and then dessert and then coffee and more snacks to go along with it. There was no more room for anything in his stomach, he already felt heavy and bloated enough, so he merely grabbed a bottle of water from the rack on the door and closed the fridge.

He set the bottle next to his phone and the was when he realized he’d forgotten to turn the lights on, the kitchen illuminated only from the entrance lights. He didn’t bother moving, only grabbed his phone to read the messages.

_it’s pretty good actually I’m shocked_

_I’m halfway through the first movie and I can’t wait to watch the second one right after_

_though I gotta say_

_those jeans look so amazing on Marty??_

Chanyeol snorted. He wasn’t surprised at all by that remark. Baekhyun could never watch a movie without commenting on the actors’ appearances and often making it as funny as possible.

_he does have a bubble butt right??_

He replied and then grabbed a glass from the cupboard, taking the bottle along as he left the kitchen to settle down on the couch. He plopped down with a loud sigh and started filling this glass.

_totally especially when he’s sleeping in that weirdass position_

_not like you sleep better_

_you can’t know that sir_

_maybe i got better at sleeping like a normal human being in the past year_

_wait_

_oh my god his mother’s about to have a crush on him???_

_wtf is happening omg_

Chanyeol laughed, almost choking on his water as he read those messages. Baekhyun was so dramatic when he watched a movie.

His eyes caught sight of his laptop, sleeping on the low table when he set his now empty glass next to it and he sighed. He had to soon start getting ready for classes, at the end of summer. As someone who hadn’t been to school in almost three years, he was probably lacking in a lot of departments. He was at least glad he’d gotten over the entire enrolling process before the start of summer. He only mostly had to get himself ready mentally now.

His phone lit up again. He didn’t grab it, merely glanced at it from where he was resting, legs folded and head laid back against the cushiness of his couch.

Baekhyun always replied so fast, even in the midst of watching a movie. It made Chanyeol’s cheeks hurt, from smiling too much. He wasn't sure what was happening, he wasn’t sure why they were talking, why they had suddenly stopped fighting about the past. But things were great this way. Not strong, probably fragile, but pretty great.

This was what he’d missed the most when they’d spent a year apart. The best friend that he’d found in Baekhyun, someone who was so similar to him that Chanyeol could say every single thought crossing his mind and at some point Baekhyun would say _hey me too!_ Someone he could talk the whole day with about even the most boring portions of his life without it feeling uninteresting. Someone who knew him better than anyone else in the world, even his own family.

He’d missed his best friend and was so delighted to have him back, it often felt like this was no more than part of his imagination.

But it wasn’t. So Chanyeol grabbed his phone and smiled.

_I’m really gonna comment every single thing about these movies_

_you’re gonna regret telling me to watch them_

And Baekhyun did comment every single thing about that movie until he was done watching it. He was wrong though, Chanyeol didn’t regret recommending them. Instead, he was making a list of other movies Baekhyun should watch in his head.

At the end of the night, when Baekhyun fell asleep and stopped replying to him, Chanyeol was laying in his bed, eyes closed and features relaxed into contentment. He didn’t feel like he was on his bed. He felt like he was floating on the most sparkling of calm waters.

He hadn’t felt this in a long time. That sensation right before falling asleep, that sensation that everything was okay and would still be okay once he opened his eyes in the morning.

When he opened his eyes in the morning, it was to a notification on his phone.

Through the sleep in his eyes, Chanyeol saw that Baekhyun had followed him on Instagram and his heart wrung a sudden wave of anxiety into his body. Baekhyun has blocked him a long time ago. He rubbed a hand over his face, pulling on his nose and his eyebrows. At one point, checking Baekhyun’s feed had been his nighttime routine. It had never done him any good.

The only good about it was that he just knew Baekhyun did the same, because they’d always done the same even when they’d been together.

Chanyeol had spent a year with no access to Baekhyun’s life, with no information about where he was and how he felt or anything else. Now, as he stared at the ceiling and didn’t see anything in particular expect for the brightness of the thoughts fuzing in his head, he had access back to it.

So he took in a deep breath full of anticipation and did the most expected thing. He spent a few minutes scrolling through Baekhyun’s feed, seeing pictures of landscapes, groups of people he recognized and didn’t recognize. A good portion of people he didn’t know. So many of them. So many pictures. So many different cities. So many cars he’d never seen Baekhyun drive. A photo with a guy Chanyeol had raced against and lost. That loss had led to Baekhyun meeting Minho, to Minho talking to him about the racing scene in California where he lived, to Baekhyun starting to imagine how a life in another state would feel like. Chanyeol had spent so many nights cursing that stupid racing event that brought so many people from all over the country together.

His thumb hit too hard against the screen when he scrolled back to the top of the page. He saw the colors around the profile picture, a simple photo of Baekhyun’s darkened figure posing against a car, the sunset on the backdrop stealing all the colors from the picture. He opened up the stories.

There was three of them, all posted last night. Pictures of a guy posing with Baekhyun. Picture of two girls posing together and making faces at the camera. Picture of half of Baekhyun’s face with these three people from the preceding pictures. Captions indicating that Baekhyun missed them.

Chanyeol pressed his thumb on the screen, to keep the photo there, until his nail turned white from the pressure.

People from the life Baekhyun had lived away from Chanyeol. People Chanyeol knew absolutely nothing about, except their names. Baekhyun had probably talked about them with him, he remembered a story about trying to teach one of these girls how to drive when she kept failing her drivers license test.

Missing people meant wanting to see them. Missing people meant Baekhyun felt strongly enough about them. About these people from the life Chanyeol was completely outside of. Baekhyun had built a life completely outside of him.

He should be happy. Because Baekhyun hadn’t been alone in the time they spent apart, because Baekhyun had made very nice friends, because Baekhyun had constructed amazing memories and stories he could share with Chanyeol.

But the only thing Chanyeol felt was incredibly stupid and incredibly small in his gigantic bed under the sheet that served him as a blanket during the summer.

He locked his phone, dropped it, closed his eyes but it made it even harder to ignore how quick his breathing had suddenly turned. Quick and difficult, because the weight on his chest was very stubborn and Chanyeol hadn’t felt it the past two weeks but there it was again and he didn’t know why. He really didn’t know why he felt this way.

He didn’t even know why he refused to see it. Why he was trying not to see it.

His eyes snapped opened and he refused to blink for a short moment. Until tiny liquid flames gathered in his eyes and threatened to overflow.

He didn’t know why this reminded him of everything bad. He didn’t know what about this ruined the illusion for him, but then he remembered. He remembered Baekhyun had only met these people because he’d chosen to disappear from Chanyeol’s life.

And it was selfish. Maybe it was incredibly selfish, but Chanyeol thought about the way Baekhyun had been traveling around and making friends and racing with people Chanyeol hated and laughing and being happy while Chanyeol had spent some days in the dark of his room because he didn’t want to open the blinds and see the mess he hadn’t cleaned up for a week and the grease in his hair because breathing was hard enough when he wasn’t even moving so how could Chanyeol move and take actual care of himself?

He heard himself laughing. An ugly sound that was more air than sentiment. That tiny, pitiful sound brought him back to all the nights and all the days he’d spent way too aware that he had a heart, that it was hurting, and that Baekhyun hadn’t even taken it along with him when he left.

All because Chanyeol had said terrible things and wasn’t good enough to keep him there and maybe wasn’t even created to love Baekhyun and be loved by him in return. Maybe this wasn’t okay. Maybe this wasn’t what he was supposed to be. Maybe he’d been lying to himself from the very first moment he’d started loving Baekhyun.

Because this hadn’t worked once. It wouldn’t work better on a second try.

Chanyeol kicked his blanket away, felt it slither around his ankles, felt it shackle him down to the bottomless hole his bed had suddenly turned into.

Because Baekhyun could turn his bed into a beach on a heavenly universe, but he could also turn it to a cell in a prison tailored just for him.

Because he’d already seen this. He’d already lived this. He’d already watched the ending so many times in his head.

And because a movie still ended the same way, no matter how many times you watched it, no matter how enthusiastic you were to rediscover it all over again.

Two nights later, Chanyeol felt like he was back to the very first day Baekhyun had come back to his life.

Except this time, there wasn’t any race, there was just a few friends hanging around together and then deciding to go for a drive and change their spot. Except this time, when they decided to take only two cars, Chanyeol offered Jongdae and one of his friends to ride with him. Except this time, Baekhyun didn’t look unsurprised at the decision, he looked betrayed as he stood there, watching Chanyeol turn to the other two and not look away.

It went on for the rest of the night. Chanyeol made it a point not to talk to Baekhyun, nor look at him. But whenever he couldn’t control himself and took a look, Baekhyun always had his eyes on him, whether he was talking to someone else or not. Although, as the night went on, the confusion on his face gradually hardened into something Chanyeol didn’t even want to name.

Instead, he focused on never being alone long enough for Baekhyun to come to him. Baekhyun probably sensed it anyway, because he never made a single attempt at talking to him at first.

It was a really shitty night. Chanyeol barely took part in any conversation, mostly listening from the sidelines even when he was alone with a friend. Jongdae kept looking at him with furrowed eyebrows, especially when Chanyeol caught him talking alone with Baekhyun.

Chanyeol kind of regretted having definitely decided to stop smoking and thrown away every last cigarette in his house or in his car. Not only because everyone around him was smoking and the scent made his craving stronger, but also because he was so stressed he’d barely managed to drink one can of beer entirely. His stomach hurt, his head hurt, his heart, especially, felt like it was caving into itself.

But this was the right thing to do. The best thing to do, for the both fo them. To avoid everything that would happen all over again.

And his plan almost worked, or so he thought. He could just stop talking to Baekhyun and Baekhyun would get it and get angry and his pride would take over and he would take his revenge by entirely ghosting Chanyeol and leaving and never seeing him again. That was a very Baekhyun thing to do.

But when Baekhyun walked up to him at some point, grabbed his hand, and pulled him away from the people around, Chanyeol remembered that both of them weren’t what they used to be as individuals of their own.

And maybe this was better. Maybe Chanyeol should stop being a coward and say whatever was on his mind. That was the only reason why he allowed Baekhyun to hold his hand and pull him away from their friends’ surprised looks, he told himself. The only reason.

Not because he hadn’t held Baekhyun’s hand in so long and he felt it chain him to both an angelic sensation and the most execrating kind of suffering ever. That hand had already let go of his once.

When it let go of him again, Chanyeol crossed his arms against his chest and hardened his face. He didn’t have much work to do. The dead pressure in his stomach already made his entire body feel like rock about to splatter on the ground.

Baekhyun looked at him for a silent moment, intent eyes, hair finally cut shorter and making the anger on his features all the more clearer. He looked good. Chanyeol wished he didn’t look so good, he wished Baekhyun was the contrary of everything that he was right now. Maybe then, Chanyeol could turn away from him once and for all.

"Why are you running away?" he said, voice hard and steady, and Chanyeol hated the way Baekhyun always knew what he was doing even before Chanyeol himself had a single clue about it.

"I’m not running away," he said and this time, contrary to a year ago, Chanyeol was aware that he was being mean. He was aware that this time, Baekhyun didn’t deserve this. Maybe last time, he hadn’t deserved it either. But it had happened. It had happened and this was pointless. "I just don’t feel like talking to you."

His voice sounded like a wrong chord even to his own ears. Or maybe that was the effect of the twitch of surprise on Baekhyun’s eyebrows, the lines on his face loosening for a moment to show he was taken aback by Chanyeol’s answer.

Then, he looked down. "Why so suddenly?" he asked, voice far away and quiet. But Chanyeol could take this. That voice had already left much, much farther away.

And he was angry. Angry because this was happening and he’d let this happen and he was hurting Baekhyun and none of this would’ve happened if, right from the start, Chanyeol hadn’t let his guard down. This wasn’t good. For neither of them. This wasn’t what they needed.

"You must be really delusional to ask me that question," Chanyeol answered but his voice was crushed under the weight of his own feet. He was trampling all over what had barely started growing. Before it could become something that would trample all over him first.

Chanyeol, too, must have been really delusional to get to this point. To have hoped, wished, imagined.

"I don’t understand," Baekhyun said, looking up at him, right into his eyes as he took a step closer. "Everything was going so well." His hands moved up along his words to illustrated the plea darkening his eyes.

It was dark around them. Yet again, they were in a lightless spot. Always in a lightness spot.

"So what?" Chanyeol snorted, despair moving his hands in its own. "So what?" he repeated, voice ridiculously small as it made its way through the pressure in his throat, his body trying his hardest not to make him do this. But he had to. So he spoke through the spikes enclosing his voice. "Why do you think it’s obvious that I would want you now just because I wanted you a year ago?"

Baekhyun’s lips parted and he remained silent. He didn’t flinch but Chanyeol saw his fists tightening into whiteness. He felt the pressure in his throat widening, like something was flooding in and his entire body would burst into pieces from inside. There wasn’t enough Chanyeol to contain everything Baekhyun made him feel, both the good and the bad. Especially the bad.

"I didn’t say that," Baekhyun said, voice elevating a bit louder under that tone of furor. He stopped, swallowed, and spoke again, calmer. "You’re doing it again. You’re putting words into my mouth just to have a reason to be mean with me because you’re upset."

Chanyeol laughed, turned his head to the side, tongue digging into his cheek. It sounded vile. Everything hat came out of his mouth sounded putrid.

"If you don’t want to hear these things, then learn to leave someone alone when they don’t want to talk to you, Baekhyun."

He always did this. Always pushed and pushed and pushed to talk to Chanyeol and make him say things he didn’t want to say.

And Chanyeol had lived this scene before. He’d survived this scene before except it had been the other way around. At some point, he too had felt the need to know every single thought that crossed Baekhyun’s mind, especially the things Baekhyun didn’t want to tell anyone.

Baekhyun shook his head and took a step back.

"You know what this is my fault," he said, huffing air out of his nose. Somewhere between a laugh and a cry. This wasn’t where Chanyeol wanted them to be. "I did this to you. You used to love me. Now you can’t do anything but despise me. I did this to us."

Another step back, gaze still hanging onto Chanyeol’s last remains. He felt his own breath tying like a noose around his throat.

"I’m sorry. I’m sorry I broke your heart so much you can’t do anything but hate me with it now. I’m sorry because your heart’s so pure and loving and kind and I’m so sorry." He shook his head again, tilting it a bit, crooking his face into a smile that just looked wrong and forceful. "But I’m trying to do something here, Chanyeol. If you don’t want it, if you won’t want it ever again it’s okay. But don’t be hot and cold with me. Be direct and honest. Don’t find excuses to be mean with me."

Chanyeol parted his lips, took a step forward, but with a single motion of his hand, Baekhyun barred him from speaking.

Chanyeol felt that hand absorb everything good he had in him, leaving him dried up and worn down even when Baekhyun turned around and left.

This ending was starting to become familiar, but Chanyeol’s entire body still trembled in its haste to leave the scene and let the pain explode in waves of self-hatred as soon as he’d be home alone again.

_Somewhere in a scene that had been replayed so many times it was starting to glitch, cold winds rose and tempests raged and fires devoured and tides engulfed and earth shattered and hearts broke._

_"Leaving won’t change anything. You’re just running away. Like a coward. If you want to leave me just say so."_

_Crashing voice, wild eyes. Chanyeol caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection on the window. Curtains pulled open, blinds chained down, lights shining shame into the scene. He couldn’t recognize himself. He was already someone different and Baekhyun hadn’t even left yet._

_"This isn’t about you, can’t you understand?"_

_Wet eyes, disheveled hair, distorted expression. The storm had already unleashed itself all over Baekhyun._

_"So what? Do you think you’ll have a better life? Do you think everything you’re running away from here won’t wait for you there? You think your life will become so much better because of that one new friend you met? Fucking bullshit."_

_Head shaking, body turning away. Chanyeol stomped all over the carpet, dark red and black. He felt lava engulfing his entire body, felt his skin peeling off, felt his heart sizzling and sizzling and sizzling._

_He wouldn’t make it out of this outbreak alive. He wouldn’t._

_"Why don’t you just believe in me?" Baekhyun’s body closer to his. Chanyeol wished he could run right to him but he wasn’t stronger than the storm. It blew him away, scattered him to pieces. It would take months to gather from the vestiges everything that Chanyeol used to be._

_"Why is our life not enough for you?"_

_Burns on his cheeks. Chanyeol raised a hand, scratched them off his cheeks. It kept dripping and dripping and dripping and he felt like he wouldn’t be able to breathe soon enough._

_"I want more than this, Chanyeol." Hands pointing around. To the TV they’d picked out together. To the candles Baekhyun had gifted him. To the one scratch on the wall they’d laughed at together. To the couch they’d carried up the stairs together. Chanyeol felt the wind rushing in and howling inside of him. "I want more than this and I want it with you. Just come with me. Why are you pushing me away?"_

_"Pushing you away?" A voice that sounded like the cry of a being buried six feet under crumbles and agony. "You’re the one who wants to leave. You planned this all by yourself and you’re telling me only a week before leaving. Was I ever even in your plans?"_

_A groan. Frustration pressed into two reddened eyes. Palms pressing and pressing and pressing until there was nothing but cruelty when those eyes looked back at him._

_"Can’t you fucking see it?" Hands thundering towards to the sky, dropping again. Body leaning forward. Maybe the winds were too strong for Baekhyun to stand straight as well. But this was a natural disaster and when your life was at stake, it was so difficult to think about anyone else but yourself. "You never see people outside of me. You haven’t hung out with Jongdae or Sehun in a month except when you catch each other during races or events. I never see people outside of you. I have no friends. They’re all your friends."_

_And what? So what? Was that bad? Even in the deadliest of catastrophes, Chanyeol wanted to cling to no one but Baekhyun. No one else mattered. Was that bad?_

_Silence. Nobody was there to hear him. Nobody was there to listen to him. So he didn’t make a single sound._

_"We live in each other. We spend every second of every day together. We need to live outside. We need to do other things. We need to be just Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Not each other’s lovers. Just Baekhyun and Chanyeol."_

_But he was good this way. He was so good this way. Being Baekhyun’s lover was the best thing that had ever happened to him. It was enough. It had always been enough. Just right, just enough._

_"I’m sorry if things are okay for you this way, Chanyeol, but they’re not for me."_

_A crack. Loud, echoing, wailing in the storm. A break right at the base, the woe of a century-old tree succumbing to the cruelty of the elements. Chanyeol felt the break right inside of him. The beginning of a long, excruciating series of breaks._

_"Leave." Sand and rocks in his mouth, coming to haunt him from far away lands. Tiny little cuts parasitizing his tongue. He still continued speaking. "Leave if you want to leave. Just fucking leave."_

_He let go. Loudening his voice enough for his ears to ring, the warning bell resonating right before a disaster. But it was too late. There was no escaping this hurricane._

_And Baekhyun didn’t try to escape either. He was still there, with Chanyeol. Amidst everything that flew around, the rage, the sorrow, the chipping detritus of what they had. A flinch. Lips pressing together on Baekhyun’s face. A tight line. They would never have this again._

_A step closer. Right in the void. Right over the edge of the cliff. Chanyeol preferred ending himself rather than waiting to be ended._

_"But I’m leaving with you. You’re taking me with you wherever you go, even though I’m staying right here, where you’re leaving me. You’re still taking me with you in your head."_

_Floods. A tsunami of sorrow crushing his heart, earth quaking in his voice. He stared right into eyes that loved and then hated him. Eyes that gave him everything and then took it all right back._

_"And I hope, Baekhyun. I hope that in your happiest moments away from me, you’ll see me right in the corner of the room and the ache of my absence will be stronger than the power of your accomplishments."_

_A stare. A lessening. Things drifting back to the ground. The frenzy coming to a halt._

_In Baekhyun’s eyes, Chanyeol saw what the storm left behind._

_Nothing but a field of desolation and debris. Chanyeol wouldn’t pick it all up and build it back to its feet. Because that was the contrary of what Baekhyun wanted._

_So he let him leave. So he just watched as Baekhyun turned his back to him, slow motioned, like the last survivor of an entire flock of birds hit by lighting._

_When the door closed and everything in the house went still, Chanyeol let himself sink into the devastation. He wasn’t a survivor._

_From then on, he was a haunting figure in a ravaged land._

Another night, another replay.

One of his last races. Summer was coming to an end.

Chanyeol wasn’t listening to any music in the car but he still felt beats and vibrations in his own body, the thrill strumming through his veins.

Wheezing cars and faces smiling through windows and a passenger’s seat empty. A first place and then a second place and then a first place again. The back and forth game spreading amusement around until Chanyeol got tired and planted himself first through the finish line.

Cheers and explosions and wins and money exchanged and lost.

The car slowly came to a halt, Chanyeol’s head let itself into the embrace of the headrest.

Chest heaving up and down, he turned his head to the window. Sehun cheering as he jumped around, people he didn’t even know celebrating his victory. Another one. It never got old.

Then, his head turned to the passenger’s seat, devoid of any presence. That seat always used to be occupied at some point in his life.

He closed his eyes, felt the smile etching itself on his face.

He was happy. Racing and winning and sometimes even losing and entertaining everyone around made him feel so incredibly happy and like _someone._

That seat was empty but he was still happy and that was odd. Chanyeol’s hadn’t realized he’d managed to come to this point. He still remembered, how towards the end of everything, things didn’t feel half as good as they should if Baekhyun wasn’t there. Now, they did.

He sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, and unfastened his belt.

The last thought he trapped alone in his car was that things did feel good without him, but he still wished Baekhyun was there with him.

"Brush my hair, uncle!"

Chanyeol snorted at the wide eyes and the wild, wavy hair his niece threw in his way.

"I see you love being served as much as your mother does," he replied, throwing a look at Yoora as she stepped into the living room, holding two fresh cups of coffee.

"Being a princess is in the blood," she replied, raising her nose with a fake air of arrogance that made Chanyeol laugh.

"So, are you gonna do it? Please?" Yuri asked again, putting her little hands on Chanyeol’s thigh and pushing herself closer to him. As if she thought her doe eyes had more effect on anyone if she put them closer to their face.

"Of course I will," Chanyeol replied, feeling himself melt as he moved to lift her up.

"Wait," she squealed, batting her pink-socked feet. "I have to get my iPad first."

Of course.

Chanyeol let her go and and Yoora finally pushed his cup of coffee towards him on the low table.

"She’s so spoiled," she commented, leaning back into the couch and holding her cup in her hands.

"You say that with no particularly negative emotion," Chanyeol teased her, eyes narrowing as he mirrored her, resting his back against the cushiness.

Even the pillow stuck between his back and the backrest felt mushy and comfortable.

"As long as she stays cute, I’ll accept even her deepest flaws," Yoora said, looking down to go along with her dramatic tone of concession.

Chanyeol shook his head at her, looking down at his phone when it lit up on the table. "You’re the one who made her like that though." He leaned to grab the device when he saw Baekhyun's name.

He’d posted a new photo on instagram. Yes, Chanyeol was that kind of person. With the notifications on.

It was a simple picture, a grey and empty warehouse cut with Baekhyun’s hand holding onto keys. The caption read _found where I’ll be selling y’all cars and also @youlikemetoomuch I won our bet and found it before you found your place._

The corners of Chanyeol’s lips jolted up the slightest bit. Baekhyun had a particularly funny social media persona. He was probably tagging the friend who’d given him his business idea. Chanyeol remembered a conversation about how they would do the same thing but in different cities.

It was a bit strange, seeing Baekhyun building a project with Chanyeol completely outside of it. But he supposed he was doing the same, he’d gone to so many races or parties or events without Baekhyun in the past month. It was weird, but not unpleasant. Just different. It seemed to work, them having a life outside of each other.

Even though, right now, they also completely lived outside of each other. They hadn’t talked or seen each other in a week and it was weird, going from texting Baekhyun all day long every day to being able to do nothing but wonder if Baekhyun had eaten his favorite snack day. He’d always made it a point to tell Chanyeol about everything he ate throughout the whole day, for no reason.

"If you’re staring so hard at that photo, I think we need to talk about why."

Yoora’s voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he locked his phone, leaving it on the couch besides him.

"I’m not sure talking about it is going to change anything at this point," he sighed, voice almost drowned out by the elephantine rush of Yuri’s feet down the hallway.

She emerged, wearing her Elsa costume for no reason. Chanyeol burst into laughter when he saw how wilder her hair had gotten, some of it caught in the costume’s zipper. Liking the attention, she twirled around once and almost tripped on her feet. Three year-olds were a blessing to this earth.

"Come here already," Chanyeol rushed her, before she actually tripped and hurt herself. He was almost scared for the iPad she was holding as she ran to him but it remained safe in her hands.

"Take this," she said, holding out her glittery brush and frilly, blue scrunchie to him. I would go along perfectly with her costume.

"I think talking about it is better than you torturing yourself by thinking about it alone though," Yoora said, not losing focus.

Chanyeol put Yuri on his lap and grabbed the brush as she unlocked her iPad and started tapping around with her loud fingers.

"I do think about it a lot," Chanyeol confessed, nothing but a mumble as he started brushing his niece’s hair.

"Why did you even break up back then?" Yoora asked after taking a sip of her coffee.

Chanyeol’s cup was probably going cold but it was okay. He was glad that for once, Yoora could enjoy something warm. It didn’t happen very often with the little monster on his lap.

"You already know," he replied, eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah but let’s just take the problem from the very beginning," she insisted, leaning towards him as she set her coffee down on the table.

Chanyeol sighed, gathering Yuri’s long, wavy hair in one hand, hand opening up every time the brush passed over the hair it was holding.

"I think we just lived in each other too much," he replied, after a while. That was what Baekhyun had told him that stormy day. Chanyeol had only begun to agree with him after thinking about it for two long months. "We didn’t really have a life outside of each other. We barely left the house, spent all our time together. And I guess he only realized that was wrong when he made new friends and wanted to spend time with them. I hated him a lot for that but he was right."

Loving someone didn’t mean doing nothing but loving them. It had taken some time and a lot of sleepless nights for Chanyeol to realize it. It was only expected of Baekhyun to want to leave. This was what he’d meant when he’d said he wanted more than what they had.

"If you realized that, then the problem is solved," she hummed, smiling when Yuri chortled at the game she was playing. "So what’s the problem _now?_ "

He’d caught her up on everything that had happened, which was the reason why she told him to come over so they could spend some time together.

Chanyeol hummed for a moment as he separated Yuri’s hair into three parts. The problem _was_ solved. He’d figured out what it was and now, they both had a separate life from each other. Even when they’d been texting all day, they’d still had their own things to do and their own friends to see.

When Chanyeol couldn’t come up with a reply, she spoke again.

"I think the problem is that you’re a little boy scared of reliving the same thing."

She said that with no mockery but Chanyeol still scrunched his facet those words. She was right and it wasn’t pleasant to put terms into what he was afraid of.

"We get too caught up in each other," he said then as he started braiding Yuri’s hair. It helped to focus on something while having this conversation, helped his head clear up. Even though he felt his throat clogging up and his fingers trembling a little. "It was a disaster last time. There’s no reason why it would work better this time. I can’t go through the same thing."

He really couldn’t. He’d barely even survived through it last time, had lost so many pieces of himself. He wasn’t even sure he’d found everything back since then.

"Sometimes, things are worth the pain," Yoora said, voice soft and low. Chanyeol glanced at her and looked away immediately when he saw the concern draped over her features. "But it doesn’t have to always be painful. It doesn’t have to end the same way again. You can’t be so sure that it will."

"But how?" Chanyeol asked, interrupting her as the words flew out of his mouth on their own, wings of despair elevating them. "How do I prevent it from going down the same path?" He stretched the scrunchie a bit too much between his fingers and started tying it at the end of the braid.

"You can set things up. I don’t know, like rules maybe. You can have an actual conversation about what you don’t want to happen again. Maybe there’s some things Baekhyun doesn’t want to happen again either," she said, shrugging, cup of coffee shrouded by her hands.

"There you go, sweetie," Chanyeol said, leaning a kiss on Yuri’s hair once he was done. She thanked her with a smile but didn’t move away from his lap. "Is it worth it though?" he asked, both to Yoora and to himself.

Would it be worth going through all that work and all that exhaustion and all that bliss a second time?

"Just because something didn’t work the first time doesn’t mean it’ll fail the second time," she said after some time. It wasn’t an uncomfortable kind of silence, those didn’t exist between them. Just the kinds of silence filled with thoughts and musings. "Especially after so much time has passed and you know exactly why it didn’t work the first time."

"I don’t know," Chanyeol said, leaning his chin on top of Yuri’s head, hugging her against his chest. Her small warmth appeased his heart, even if she probably had no idea.

"All I know, is that if you want to make something work then it will work. Because you’ll do your best to make sure it will," Yoora said, mouth twisting to the side in a thoughtful expression. "And I also know you haven’t fallen in love with anyone in a whole year, Chanyeol. And maybe that’s because you haven’t fallen out of love to begin with."

Chanyeol smiled, no real contentment in the curve of his mouth. He kind of hated the way she knew him so much and the way her words always reflected the things Chanyeol refused to tell himself.

He leaned towards Yuri’s ear. "Your mom is always right, Yuri. Please don’t be a monster like her when you grow up."

Yoora grabbed a pillow and threw it his way but her lacking aiming skills made it land on the side of Yuri’s hair.

When she turned to them with a face all wrinkled up, they both laughed so hard Chanyeol didn’t even mind that his coffee wasn’t as hot as it should be when he finally started drinking it.

_Somewhere in the ruins of a deserted world, Chanyeol was hiding amidst a crowd of bodies and dancing so hard he could barely even feel that he existed on the plains of reality._

_Maybe he didn’t exist. Maybe shots after shots after shots he was slowly erasing himself._

_Scribbling all over the person Baekhyun had let behind. Hiding that person amidst the bright neons and the flashing lights. Crushing that person between bodies of people he could barely even hear the name of. Muting that person under the trashy sound that reverberated in the emptiness of his heart. Drowning that person in pools of alcohol that ingurgitated him more than he ingurgitated them._

_That one person who hadn’t been enough to make Baekhyun want to stay behind, with him._

_Out of nowhere, Chanyeol wanted to leave._

_Suddenly the person dancing with his back to his front felt too much. Suddenly his own breath stunk like acid. Suddenly his mouth felt like a rip in time and space every time someone else’s mouth touched it. Suddenly he wanted to leave, go somewhere else, somewhere far away._

_But where would he go? He opened his eyes and everything was blurry around him. There was not a single person he knew in this nightclub. He needed another drink. He walked, stumbled, looking around, grabbed something from the bar, a glass waiting there alone. Alone and waiting and frozen in time. He gulped it down, feeling himself disappear with each sip. Maybe he was drinking his own existence._

_Chanyeol had to leave. He really had to leave. But his body was hanging on the bar counter, his arms folded, his head floating around someone._

_Chanyeol had to leave but where would he go? He had nowhere to go now. Baekhyun had been something akin to his hometown, where he thought he’d live forever happily ever after. But he’d been put in exile. Baekhyun had ripped him out of the only place he’d ever clung to like it would disappear any moment._

_He raised his head, threw it back, laughed. It sounded like a sob. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was just distorted by the movement all around._

_The worst thing about this was that his exile wasn’t even a place far away from where he’s always lived. Baekhyun had merely left Chanyeol in solitary with no one but himself._

_He turned around, ordered another drink._

_There was nowhere to go to so Chanyeol remained there, trashing himself in a place he couldn’t call his homeland now that his home had snatched itself away._

Through blurriness and a pounding head, Chanyeol stared at his two possible poisons tonight.

On the right, was another shop of tequila. He didn’t remember how many he’d drunk already.

On the left, was his phone. Baekhyun’s name was in bold on the screen. He just had to press his thumb there and he could call him and maybe tell him everything he wasn’t supposed to tell him.

He stared. Left. Right. Someone sat down right on top of the bar next to him. Left. Right. He turned away, looking over at the crowd in front of him. Too many people. He wanted to leave. He turned back to the bar. Left. Right. Which poison would he drown himself in tonight? Left. Right.

Both. Why choose? Chanyeol was very bad at choices. He chose to down that last shot, pay, and tumble his way out of the club. Yet another bad choice.

The rest of the night was even blurrier. Chanyeol caught a taxi and then it was nothing but a body slumped on a backseat, mumbled words, flashing lights, a head jumping against a window over and over again, until it hurt.

It didn’t hurt as much as the past two weeks though. Two weeks. Living without Baekhyun while living in the same city as him was even harder than what Chanyeol was used. And Chanyeol was used to a lot of yearning, a bone-deep kind of craving.

And what he wanted was just there. Right there. He’d thought about this for so many nights, yet again. And it was just there and he wanted it so much and maybe, just maybe all the agony in the world was worth it. It was worth those moments where Chanyeol could lay in bed, close his eyes, and know that everything would be still okay when he’d open his eyes in the morning.

Maybe he didn’t need to be scared. Maybe he was just too used to being scared and he didn’t know any other way to be.

At some point, Chanyeol opened his eyes and he was in front of Baekhyun’s door. How he even remembered the address was a mystery. He’d only heard it from Sehun once. Different address than a year ago.

Chanyeol stood in front of that door, a little sobered up from the drive. He’d opened the window halfway through. His hair must be a mess. But he was a mess. And Baekhyun had already seen everything about Chanyeol, even the most disastrous sides or appearances of his.

So Chanyeol didn’t think. He just raised his hand and jammed his finger against the doorbell.

He dropped his hand, swinging it along his body. The door didn’t take too long to open but when it did, it didn’t take too long for it to start closing again. He was given barely two seconds to stare at Baekhyun’s face melt from surprise to something darker and more disappointed. But Chanyeol wanted this and he would work for this.

He pushed his hand against the door, preventing Baekhyun from closing it.

"What?" Chanyeol said, snorting because they’d lived this once and the roles had been inverted. They just seemed to live the same things over and over again, never on the same side as the previous time. "You don’t like when people do the things you do to them?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Baekhyun opened the door widely again. He was wearing an oversized grey shirt and shorts of a darker shade, cut long along his thighs. His hair was a little damp. He’d just taken a shower. Chanyeol felt as tempered as if he was standing under a shower of endearment.

"You’re drunk," Baekhyun said and the illusion didn’t even shatter. Because his voice was smooth and molten and Chanyeol wanted to wrap himself around it. He’d showered now he needed a towel. "I don’t think you should be here."

Chanyeol furrowed his eyebrows, tripped when he took a step forward. His body crashed against the door and he took that opportunity to open it widely. Nothing pushed back. Baekhyun merely stepped away, looking right at him with those eyes.

A sun. Maybe a moon. Maybe the entire galaxy. That was what those eyes could offer to Chanyeol. He knew it well.

"Why?" Chanyeol asked, holding himself against the wall as he kicked his shoes off. He kind of wanted to lean against the wall. He felt wobbly. "You don’t want me anymore?" He frowned at his own words. "You said you wanted this so you would work for it. Did it only last, what, two weeks?"

"Chanyeol," he heard behind him, a low voice. He recognized concern but as he made his way to where he imagine the living room would be, he could barely see the colors around him.

"Oh," he said then, twirling around. He almost fell. Must be the consequence of how nice Baekhyun looked with the beige wall behind him. Or was it a lifeless yellow? "You also stopped loving me so suddenly. I forgot that’s nothing unusual for you."

His words sounded like they weren’t his words. All bunched up against each other, nothing but mumbles and grumbles and slurred sounds.

His legs hit something and he fell. Cushiness. He was on a couch. Different. He looked at the floor. Black and red rug. Same as before. He caught Baekhyun leaning forward in a quick step, hand stretched in front of him. He was only a step away. Baekhyun was good at catching. He was also very good at letting go.

Acid gathered in Chanyeol’s stomach, plunging him in pain and suddenly he wanted to curl up and die and maybe Baekhyun could just play with his hair while he did it. Baekhyun was also very good at playing with his hair.

He looked at Baekhyun’s fingers, saw them curling into fists.

"Chanyeol," he said again, this time weaker. He was standing just there. Still sounded so far away. His gaze was blurry. Or was it Chanyeol’s? "I never said I stopped doing that."

It was Chanyeol’s. He knew because now his eyes were leaking fire and they shouldn’t and this was too much and Chanyeol was so so tired and he wanted to sleep but he couldn’t wake up to another morning where things weren’t okay.

"I’m sorry," he said, laughing at the end of it. It only made his voice sink down further. "I’m sorry because I’m not this person anymore. The person I am being now. I’m not it, I wasn’t it." He didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say. He blew a big chunk of air out, saw Baekhyun pressing his lips together into a tight line. "But you’re hurting me so much and now that you’re back, it’s so hard for me to be who I wanted to be."

Baekhyun didn’t say anything. He just stood there. Rigid. He could’ve blended with the wall if he wasn’t more mesmerizing than any sculpture ever created in the whole entire world.

Chanyeol took a deep breath in, felt it fill him up too much. A human being wasn’t supposed to feel like exploding. Baekhyun made Chanyeol feel all sorts of things. They weren’t all good. But were they all bad?

Still not saying a word, Baekhyun moved. Chanyeol followed him with his gaze, scared that he would blend into the wall for real and disappear and never come back. Again.

Except he’d come back. And all he did now was walk the other way and sit down next to Chanyeol, legs folded under his body, turned to him. Chanyeol felt something wash over him, something rush over him.

"I think," he started but it was difficult to speak over all the floods in his body. Pain and sorrow and yearning and a need for things to be okay. He needed things to be okay so bad. He looked down, focusing on a crease on his jeans. "I think I’m saying all these mean things to you because I’m scared that you’re going to leave me and maybe pushing you away first is a good way of stopping that from happening."

Laughter. It sounded wet, troubled. Chanyeol looked at Baekhyun again. His eyes sparkled. More shine than the surface of clear waters but less peace too.

"I see you’ve really grown up enough to admit your wrongdoings now," he said and maybe Baekhyun was locked somewhere under the same waters as Chanyeol. He sounded choked.

Maybe Chanyeol should just give him his air supply.

Or maybe they could just share it. Maybe one of them didn’t have to sacrifice their life. Maybe they could just try sharing it and it would be okay. How did you share air underwater though?

"Can you share water under the air?" he asked then before furrowing his eyebrows. "Air under water."

"What?" Baekhyun said and this time, when he laughed, it sounded like all the laughs Chanyeol loved on him. He loved all of them. Even the one where Baekhyun wheezed and opened his mouth wide and raised his eyebrows. "You’re really so drunk."

He was. Chanyeol remembered he was drunk. He also remembered why he was drunk. He felt his lips trembling. He looked at Baekhyun for a silent moment.

His eyes had dried now. He was looking back at Chanyeol. Not a single word was said. But they needed to say them. They needed to hear them. They needed to speak them together.

And Chanyeol missed that laugh already. He’d been missing that laugh for a year. He missed the Baekhyun from a year ago. No. He missed the Baekhyun from a year and a half ago. He missed all the Baekhyuns in the universe, even the ones he had never even had the chance to meet.

He wished he’d met them.

"I wish I’d met you before," he said, straightening his back, leaning his head against the backrest, temple pressing into cushiness. When had he even turned his body towards Baekhyun? Gravity. Unnoticed. "Do you remember what your phone number was three years ago?"

He closed his eyes. His mouth was dry. He could barely hear himself speak.

"Why?" he heard Baekhyun ask and he didn’t open his eyes still. He could look at Baekhyun in his head. He’d done it so many times, for so many hours.

His head was pounding. His body was telling him something but Chanyeol didn’t know what it was. Maybe something like _go to sleep._ Or maybe something like _hug Baekhyun and this time never let him go_.

Maybe Baekhyun hadn’t left. Maybe Chanyeol had just let him go.

"I wish I could get the you from three years ago on the phone or something." His voice sounded so much louder with his eyes closed. And so much quieter. Chanyeol hated those contradictions in himself. "To tell him that he’d become friend with a Chanyeol. Tell him that this Chanyeol would love him like he’d never love anyone ever again."

His stomach hurt. His head felt like it wasn’t part of his body.

"Tell him to please, please not hate him for all the mean things that Chanyeol would say to him."

Something brushed his temple. Chanyeol’s heart, eons away from his head, raged under the touch.

"Tell him that Chanyeol preferred being burned by passion and not hatred. Tell him that if that Baekhyun ever wants to leave because things aren’t good, he could just say it to that Chanyeol. The one from a year ago. Me."

Something caressed the skin of his cheek. Tears would never be as gentle as this. Tears would never treat his skin as careful as this. But all Chanyeol wanted was care.

"And I would change things so that Baekhyun would never leave me. You. You’re that Baekhyun, aren’t you?"

Chanyeol burrowed into the torridity. No. Not a fire. A fire would never be as welcoming as this. As embracing as this. or as blazing.

"And to tell him that at some point that Baekhyun will come back and he’ll meet a me that is very scared. Because that Chanyeol almost died the first time you left and he knew he wouldn’t be able to live through it a second time. Me. I’m that Chanyeol."

Chanyeol pressed his lips together, pressing himself into the hand against his cheek. A hand. That was it. Or was it a pillow? Or was it just what had always been his favorite pillow?

Maybe it was, because it took only a few seconds of silence for him to slip and be carried away into slumber.

_Somewhere between the fissures of a heart, Chanyeol wanted to cut Baekhyun out of his dreams until he bled out._

When morning came, Chanyeol opened his eyes and desired death right away.

His head was both pounding and floating away from him, his stomach felt like a pit of sourness, and even when he merely raised his hand to rub his face, everything felt like it was dragged out by time. He pushed himself to sit up, squeezing his eyes closed when the entire world slipped beneath his feet. He wasn’t even standing on his feet.

After a moment, he puffed his cheeks up and opened his eyes. It took him a few tries to see things properly. Chanyeol wasn’t used to drinking so much anymore, he had no idea why he’d gotten himself into this torturous morning all.

He looked around and didn’t recognize where he was. A bed with clear, blue, cotton sheets had held him together throughout the night. A very messy wardrobe with the doors still open, a white long-haired carpet on the floor beneath the bed’s feet. He looked to the side, frowning when that felt too hard to do for something that should be effortless. On the bedside table, there was a wallet, a big empty bottle of water, and an earbuds case.

Chanyeol shouldn’t know where he was or who had been generous enough to drag him to bed but unfortunately, he remembered every little thing that had happened last night.

He brought his hands up and ravaged his hair with them. He’d said too much. His hands dropped to the hollow between his crossed legs. He hadn’t said enough.

Two options stood before him. Either Chanyeol wanted this and would run away from it, or he wanted this and would work for it. Despite not being sure of the outcome, in spite of the terrific fear of ruining his life all over again and never getting over it, despite all the bad this could do to him, to them.

But Chanyeol chose to think that it was worth it. All the pain and the difficulty and the fights in the world were worth every single second of completion he bathed in, when he was together with Baekhyun and things were good.

He took a deep breath, clearing the doubt from his body, threw the blankets off himself, stood up and walked even though the whole world tumbled beneath his feet.

When he reached the living room, Baekhyun was on the couch. Black shirt, black shorts, bare skin, ruffled hair, and an expression of stillness when he turned his head from the muted TV to Chanyeol walking towards him. Chanyeol joined him in that tiny world of quietude, settling down next to him, and crossed his legs again.

Neither of them said anything for a while, they just watched a random show about animals and farms. No sound to disturb them. Chanyeol wondered if Baekhyun had slept in the same bed as him, how long he’d spent watching a muted thing just to be sure he wouldn’t disturb Chanyeol, limiting himself in his own house.

They used to do this sometimes. Spending time without even talking to each other. They didn’t need to, just a presence, just a brush of the hands, just a kiss on the corner of a mouth or the side of a head, were enough. Chanyeol had never felt at peace as much with anyone else. He also never felt as vulnerable and as prone to destruction with anyone else either.

Baekhyun was the first to break the silence.

"I know you remember everything and probably feel ashamed," he said, voice timid in its loudness. Chanyeol closed his eyes and let it stream into his head, clear and fresh. "But when I woke up, I felt glad that you said all those things to me. Even if half of it was just drunken nonsense." Chanyeol snorted at that, put his elbow on his knees and held his hand between his face. "Even if it did make me want to run away a bit, at first."

He pressed the soles of his palms into his cheeks. Baekhyun’s voice had gone quieter in his last sentence, on the verge of extinction.

"You want to run away?" Chanyeol asked, making sure not to put any emotion into his voice even though his stomach was swirling into itself and his heart could get lost in that pit at any moment.

He’d understand. If Baekhyun chose to run away from this, this time, he’d understand.

"I don’t," Baekhyun replied and Chanyeol looked at him this time. He met his gaze, one that was darkened by the lines of gravity around his face. But Baekhyun clung to his gaze and didn’t let go. "I don’t want to run away. I think you deserve better than that. I think _I_ deserve better than that too."

Chanyeol let out a long string of breaths. He lowered his head until his palms dug into his eyes instead and didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then, he looked at Baekhyun, hands dropping like the deadweight of shackles on his thighs. Baekhyun still hadn’t looked away. He was so beautiful. He was wearing nothing but black, wrinkled fabric he’d probably already worn for hundreds of nights, but Chanyeol wanted him so bad, _craved_ him so bad. All of him.

With the sleepy eyes and the big smiles and the hateful eyes and the hurtful attacks.

"I think we should talk about this," Chanyeol said, noting it for Baekhyun but also for himself. They needed to that, for once. "In an honest way, a transparent way. Without hatred, without spite or vengeance or sanctioning."

Chanyeol was exhausted. Of hating Baekhyun, of trying to get retribution from Baekhyun, of hurting himself. But he was not tired of Baekhyun. No, there was nothing as exhilarating in the world as Baekhyun.

Baekhyun nodded, turning his body to Chanyeol. He sat properly, with his back straight and his hands gathered on his lap. His lips parted, then closed again. Hesitation.

"I’ll start then," he said then and Chanyeol didn’t have it in him to stand as strong as him.

His body was folded into itself, hands carrying the weight of his head. He heard Baekhyun take a deep breath and sigh through his nose, in one short hit. For Chanyeol, it was getting harder to breathe, his heart punched all over the walls of his body, leaving barely enough room for air.

"I’m sorry I left you a year ago," was the first thing Baekhyun said. His voice wasn’t strong, wasn’t steady. It was full of tremors and sounded too wide, stretched out by a stress. Chanyeol swallowed through the sensation of a frozen burn in his throat. "I’m sorry all I do is add fuel to your fire. I’m sorry I never calm you, only make you hurt both yourself and I more."

He stopped. Chanyeol didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. It was hard enough to watch Baekhyun look down, to watch him fiddle with the hem on the leg of his shorts. Chanyeol pressed his lips together, hard, until he felt his teeth dig into the flesh inside of his mouth. Years had passed and the need to take Baekhyun in his embrace at the slightest show of weakness had not diminished.

"I’m sorry I’m not who you thought you’d get," Baekhyun said, still looking down, tilting his head. Then, he stopped, opened his mouth to let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and muted sound of pain. "I’m sorry I still love you."

He finally looked up at Chanyeol and Chanyeol felt himself drowning in the blurred clarity of Baekhyun’s eyes. Deep waters engulfing him, yet, at the same time, shrouding him in a fire. Chanyeol could lose himself to annihilation if he wasn’t careful enough.

"Isn’t that the worst thing you’ve ever heard? I love you." A pause marking the acceleration in his voice, the spread of a watery fire. Each drop made Chanyeol’s soul sizzle, crisp and precise. This would mark him for the rest of his existence. "And I’m sorry I love you and I can’t stop and never could stop even if I’m the one who left. I’m sorry I don’t know how to love in a kind way, in a good way. In a painless way."

Chanyeol should say something. He should say that he wanted no other way. That they could work together for it to be another way, still. But he let him talk, merely watched as Baekhyun looked to the side, right at him, to the side again, head tilting, shaking, agitation taking over his whole body.

"I don’t know if we’re good for each other," he continued, smiling a little. The bad kinds of smiles. The one that you gave because you were so ridiculously sad it was almost hilarious to be in that state. Chanyeol knew that very well. "I want to believe that we are, despite everything." His hand raised a wave of despair to illustrate his words. "I believe that I’ll never be as good with anyone in this whole entire fucking world as I’ll be with you. Nothing will ever come close. But that’s me. Maybe that’s me being selfish, me clinging to something that I shouldn’t cling to. But I want you. And I want what’s best for you so I’ll try being the best version of myself for you. And I think you should decide what’s best for you too. Whether it’s being with me, or not. You decide."

He pressed his lips together at the end of his words, eyebrows raised as he looked at Chanyeol. He was doing everything not to cry. Chanyeol could still recognize the signs. The twitching eyelids, the gaze rendered heavy by the weight of the tears it was trying to keep in, the shiver on his cheeks.

Chanyeol felt it all on himself as well, felt it brazing all over his body. He’d been consumed by that raging fire one too many times. That feeling of sadness deep in the stomach, that sensation of being stuck somewhere, small and lone. He didn’t want Baekhyun to feel it.

And he’d never heard Baekhyun be so clear about his feelings, so open. He’d just split himself in two and let Chanyeol see right into him.

This was step forward but a step back all at the same time. This was Baekhyun saying that he could leave. If Chanyeol wanted it, Baekhyun would leave him alone. This time without coming back, maybe. Chanyeol’s heart let out a wail that pulsed pain right into his veins with every beat. If he said all this, it meant that part of Baekhyun had already taken the decision to leave.

And Chanyeol had thought about it for so long, for a year. He’d explored every possible scenario over the course of a year. And this was the moment he chose to chase after Baekhyun.

Even though running after Baekhyun was like chasing fire. Even though it was like driving off a cliff and only then waiting for the road to materialize beneath him. Even though chasing after Baekhyun was like spinning around with his feet already cut off, was like stilling and expecting time to follow along. But it didn’t. It ran fast enough to hit him head on. And there was no other way. No other way Chanyeol knew to be. No other way Chanyeol wanted to be.

So he didn’t even breathe before declaring his decision, didn’t even take the time to gather his thoughts together.

"All I know," he said, voice barely louder than a whisper, chopped in pieces by the yearning inflating his throat, "is that you’ve grown a lot. I’ve grown a lot. And you’ll probably grow even more in the coming years and there’s nothing I want more than to be here to witness it."

Baekhyun let out a laugh, this time even wetter, even more air than sound, lightened by the relief drooping his whole body forward.

He didn’t say anything. Chanyeol didn’t say anything either. They just looked at each other, right in front of a muted world on a screen, even though Chanyeol could barely see Baekhyun over the unreleased tears flouting his sight.

"I miss kissing you," Baekhyun said then, just as his eyes crashed down Chanyeol’s face.

Chanyeol felt himself carried away by that crash. Water. Or fire. He didn’t know. But whatever it was, he wanted it to extinguish him until there was nothing left.

Their lips followed the natural flow of creation and found each other.

When Chanyeol’s lips touched Baekhyun’s, he felt a brush. A friction. An ignition. It consumed him, burst him into crimson passion so hard he felt himself turning into a rain of ashes.

He wouldn’t come out of this alive. He knew love ended in mourning, either people grew apart or said goodbye at the end of lifelong road. Maybe it would end badly no matter what and they were thinking about this too much. Maybe didn’t even actually have time to think about it. Maybe loving someone was dying and coming alive all at the same time.

But this was the moment Chanyeol felt himself dying. Part of him died on Baekhyun’s lips, right at the moment he kissed the curve of his cupid’s bow. Another death when Baekhyun’s lower lip nudged right in the dip of his mouth. Another death when his hands held onto Baekhyun’s face and Baekhyun’s hand settled its print on Chanyeol’s thigh. Another death. And another. And another. Just so another part of him could rise from the flames.

And they were a match. A perfect match, if anyone asked Chanyeol. Maybe a pair of matches too. A match couldn’t, shouldn’t alight another match. But what were rules? Baekhyun could stop the entire function of time just by kissing the corner of Chanyeol’s lips. Chanyeol could snatch the motion away from the entire world just by brushing his upper lip on the pulp of Baekhyun’s lower lip. What were rules?

Chanyeol didn’t remember them. Every single rule in the world capsized in-between their mouths,burst into tiny little explosions and the ash of it tested like a candor he’d only ever taste in the soul. Never anywhere that was lesser than the deepest part of him.

Their lips parted and their foreheads nudged against each other as they shared each other’s breath.

"What are we doing?" Baekhyun whispered. Chanyeol could still almost feel them against his own, along with an ache. Like he’d found part of himself back and then lost it again. He pressed the delicacy of a kiss against Baekhyun’s mouth again, to make up for it. "Where is this going?"

Chanyeol’s lips remained parted, he was breathless. Everything was too much and not enough all at the same time.

"I’m just loving you," Chanyeol confessed as he kissed the tip of Baekhyun’s nose with his. With his eyes closed, his lips still found their way and properly pressed a peck against the tip of Baekhyun’s nose too, making up for their jealousy. "I have no idea where this is going or how it will end but right now, I just want to let myself love you. And wherever this is going, we can just go there together."

Baekhyun’s hands hugged Chanyeol’s, where he’d cupped the most precious face in the whole entire universe. He hadn’t see every face ever created but he didn’t need to, in order to compare. Baekhyun’s was the most precious.

"What if we never come back from it?" Baekhyun asked and with Chanyeol’s eyes closed, his voice sounded like it was in the deepest part of Chanyeol’s head, a seed of his imagination. But it wasn’t. This was the reality Chanyeol had dreamed of for so long. "Or worse. What if we come back from it in pieces?"

"At least those pieces will be lost somewhere between us," Chanyeol replied in a tamed whisper, even though he hadn’t felt so whole in a long time. "I don’t want to lose myself in anyone but you, Baekhyun. I don’t want to find myself in anyone but you."

When Baekhyun kissed him, Chanyeol drew the curves of his smile in his head. It wasn’t that hard when he could feel them against his mouth.

They pulled away, their eyes opened, their stares met, and for some reason, Chanyeol pulled away and burst into tiny laughter.

"What," Baekhyun said and his hand was still on Chanyeol’s thigh and it felt so warm and fresh at the same time.

"I don’t know," Chanyeol said, shaking his head. He still felt pretty bad from his hangover but at least, he didn’t want to bawl his eyes out anymore.

He wanted to laugh until his stomach hurt for another reason than all the shots he’d taken last night. And, for some reason, he felt too seen and too observed and a bit too self-conscious. He looked so bad right now.

"Why do you suddenly look shy?" Baekhyun asked, weaving his voice into a tender kind of amusement.

"That’s because I _am_ shy," Chanyeol confessed without much difficulty. He couldn’t explain it but he couldn’t look into Baekhyun’s eyes for too long right now.

"What do you mean you’re shy," Baekhyun laughed, fully this time, between each of his words. When Chanyeol tried to move away, he grabbed his hand and kept him in place, eyes bubbling with amusement. "We’ve literally already dated before."

"It’s not the same thing," Chanyeol whined, rolling his eyes and squeezing Baekhyun’s fingers in his. Not for too long though. Holding that hand was a precious memory he was glad to relive. He needed to treat it with the proper amount of care.

Baekhyun leaned closer, face split into two beautiful parts by his teasing smile. "Maybe you’re still a baby and that’s why I have to watch you grow too."

His words ended in laughter when Chanyeol pushed him hard and he fell back into the couch.

"I am a sick, hungover person," Chanyeol grumbled, wishing there was a pillow he could hit him with. Instead, he moved to lie down and pushed Baekhyun’s leg with his foot. "Go make me some breakfast and take care of me. I’m dying."

"No," Baekhyun said, and he lied down as well, closing his eyes. His face was a perfect harmony of contentment and peace as his legs tangled with Chanyeol’s."I just want to lay down with you for a bit."

Chanyeol closed his eyes as well, making the tremors in his chest even more obvious to the rest of him. It was like an expanding and a tightening and a doom and a renaissance of all the feelings he’d tried so hard to demolish for so long.

They lay dow together, tangled. Chanyeol wanted to look at him but kept his eyes closed. He now knew he had a lot of time ahead of him to look at Baekhyun all he wanted, there was no need to rush.

"Yuri, stop running around or you’ll fall," Yoora shouted but the only effect it had on Yuri was her head turning with a grin as she continued striding away from the kitchen.

Chanyeol laughed as his sister shook her head. "She’s a cute little witch who really thinks she’s Elsa or something," he said, cheeks hurting bit when when he didn’t stop beaming widely while speaking.

He dropped the potato he’d been peeling in a bowl and grabbed another one to peel it as well.

"She’ll be the death of me, she just runs around with that dress on every day," Yoora complained as she moved to the fridge and opened the door. "I didn’t even wash it in more than a week because she just never leaves it alone."

"It’s kind of hilarious from over here," Chanyeol shrugged, furrowing his eyebrows when the peeler got stuck. He pulled harder and the skin peeled off.

"Only because you’re going to your own house alone at the end of the day," she huffed, grabbing some carrots and bell peppers. "Though, maybe you won’t be so alone anymore," she added, side-eyeing him.

Chanyeol pressed his lips together to hide a smile he knew his sister would make fun of. When he heard her laugh, he knew he’d failed.

"Baekhyun doesn’t come over every night," he replied, shrugging one of his shoulders. He dumped the bare potato in the bowl and grabbed another, bigger one. "It’s been only a week since we’ve settled things."

"And how is it going?" she asked, closing the door and moving to the kitchen island where she laid all the vegetables. Chanyeol had no idea what she wanted to cook, she probably had no idea either. She often just figured it out along the way. "I feel like you’re pretty calm about this."

Chanyeol hummed. "I think we said everything hat needed to be said and now we’re taking things slowly. We don’t see each other every day, I try not to text him all day long either."

"Why though? That’s kind of limiting yourself," she said and when Chanyeol glanced at her over his shoulder from where he stood in front of the sink, her eyebrows were furrowed as she started peeling the carrots.

"I just don’t want to fall back on the same things that broke us apart," Chanyeol said, twisting his mouth at the end of his words. That was a huge possibility, despite either of them perhaps having become better versions of themselves over time.

"I think that’s something you should talk about, though," Yoora said, looking towards the door when Yuri fused by while singing something Chanyeol couldn’t even recognize. She shook her head with an amused smile. "Did you?"

"Not really," he hummed, tilting his head. One more potato. He scrunched his face. He really hated the way peeled potatoes felt in his hands. "You’re right, though. The only way to prevent the same thing from happening is to talk about why it happened in the first place."

"Exactly," he heard her say, a perky sound. "But I think things are going well right now. Don’t rush it either. Just enjoy it and see where this will take you. I know he makes you really happy."

He did. It had only been a week but Chanyeol went to sleep every night with a feeling of peace and woke up every morning with barely any sentiment of fear. He mostly woke up feeling like things were okay and walkways would be. It was almost too good to be true, but maybe it would remain this way only if they worked for it together.

And talking was the only way of working on a relationship. She was right. Chanyeol wouldn’t keep things locked in himself and commit the same mistakes.

"He does. Though," he added with a snort, dropping his knife to start washing the potatoes he’d peeled. "He’s still very infuriating."

"That’s why you like him though," he heard her say with a chortle. "I think you like getting angry at the person you love. You’re a bit weird."

"That’s not it," he defended himself, although the laughter in his voice removed all credibility from him. "Okay maybe it _is_ like that," he then gave up after a silent, judgmental moment from Yoora.

They laughed together and Chanyeol sighed out an air of contentment. He cut the water off and brought the potatoes to Yoora. In his back-pocket, he felt his phone vibrate.

He didn’t need to see who it was, didn’t give up everything he was doing just to see if it was Baekhyun and reply to him as quickly as possible. Chanyeol was calmer in his sentiments towards Baekhyun, maybe a bit more mature.

It felt good to love Baekhyun without it draining everything he had in him.

Sunny eyes, sparkly smile, limpidity in Baekhyun’s voice as he raised his hand, the bag he was holding swinging against his head.

"The food wanted to see you so it brought me," he said and Chanyeol chortled and stepped away from the door.

"Silly," he whispered, lips curving from their own accord when Baekhyun stepped in slowly, crashing his gaze into Chanyeol and raising bone-deep shivers out of him.

He rose on the tip of his shoes and pressed his lips against Chanyeol’s. Hand falling on Baekhyun’s waist to pull him closer, Chanyeol felt everything that was in Baekhyun wash into him like gasoline spilling on the floor. It fired him up and when they pulled appart, there was still so much more of Chanyeol left for those feelings to devour whole.

They didn’t though. Lately, Baekhyun never made him feel demolished. Just made him feel very, very loved.

"I hope that’s Thai take-out," he said, grabbing the plastic bag from Baekhyun’s hand and pulling away to let him take his shoes off.

"It is," Baekhyun said, following him into the kitchen once his shoes were off. "There’s only two weeks of summer left and we should celebrate."

"Why would you celebrate the end of summer?" Chanyeol snorted, putting the bag on the kitchen counter and opening a cupboard to grab two glasses of water.

"Well, it’s kind of a way to celebrate your new life that begins in two weeks actually," Baekhyun corrected himself, moving to the fridge to grab a bottle of water. Chanyeol smiled as he grabbed the glasses and the bag of food. It was a bit weird to see Baekhyun so present in his apartment again, but only the pleasant kind. "You’re back to being a student and I’m back to being your hot tutor."

"You?" Chanyeol asked, mustering up as much mock judgment as possible in his voice. He bumped his shoulder to Baekhyun’s on his way out of the kitchen. "I’m pretty sure you need some knowledge about what I’m studying to tutor me though?" he hummed, narrowing his eyes like he was really thinking about it as they moved to the living room.

That meant nothing though. Chanyeol already couldn’t wait to talk Baekhyun’s ear off with everything he learned in a program that he hoped and was convinced would suit him this time. He also knew he would ask Baekhyun for tutoring, just the same way he used to do when neither of them understood anything about all those laws they’d been learning about.

"No knowledge here," Baekhyun said, shrugging with his eyebrows as he dropped on the couch. "Only hotness."

Chanyeol laughed. "I can’t deny that," he said, looking at Baekhyun’s smile grow as he sat down next to him and set everything on the table. Then, he sighed a little. "I’m not sure I’m totally ready for school to start though."

"Why not?" Baekhyun asked, uncapping the bottle.

Chanyeol pressed his lips together. "I don’t know. I also need to take a huge step back on racing and everything." He took the food boxes out of the bag.

"I think this one’s mine," Baekhyun said, gesturing to the first one Chanyeol was holding. He took it from him, their fingers brushing. Chanyeol hadn’t been so aware of the warmth on someone else’s skin in so long. He felt himself turn to liquid wherever Baekhyun even accidentally touched him. "Are you gonna stop racing and all the things that go with it?"

Focusing back on the conversation, Chanyeol titled his head. He took out his box and handed the chopsticks inside the bag to Baekhyun.

"I don’t really know actually, I need to focus," he sighed, words heavy with hesitation.

He didn’t want to give up what he loved but if Chanyeol wanted this to go well, he had to work for it. This was a decision Chanyeol had taken a year ago, even if it used to be something he’d always wanted. His parents hadn’t approved at first so he’d gone into law but when he’d dropped that and decided to do what _he_ wanted, things had been clearer. It had just taken almost two years for him to start working on it.

"I don’t think you should entirely give up on something you like so much," Baekhyun said, leaning to open his box. When Chanyeol remained deep in thought and immobile, he opened his too. "Don’t drop something that makes you so happy. Sacrifices are what makes you hate what you’re supposed to love."

Chanyeol looked at him. Baekhyun didn’t look like a serious kind of person to the average people, Chanyeol was aware of it. He was always so bubbly and carefree and full of jokes and tries to make everyone in the room feel happy, people usually didn’t think he could be serious until they truly got to know him. However, he was also one of the most patient and caring people Chanyeol knew, always giving the best advice he could muster up.

"I still have time to think about it," Chanyeol said, raising one shoulder and furrowing his eyebrows. He hadn’t thought he’d need to talk about this but now that the topic was opened, he felt like he had a million things to share. The Baekhyun effect. Some things were unchanging. "That’s not the only thing though."

"What’s wrong?" Baekhyun asked, the concern clear in the wide eyes he looked at Chanyeol with, his chopsticks stuck with some food right above the box.

Chanyeol parted his lips, closed them again. This was bit ridiculous. He knew Baekhyun would never judge him but he wasn’t used to sharing his deepest insecurities with someone anymore.

He took a deep breath and dug into his food to focus on something else as he spoke. "I don’t know. I guess I’m a bit worried because everyone at school’s gonna be much younger than me. We have completely different lives and I don’t know if I’ll… be able to make friends or something."

He felt like a little kid and he disliked that sensation, but he’d been thinking about this ever since he’d been accepted into the program he’d applied for.

"I think it’ll be okay," Baekhyun said, humming a little. Chanyeol felt their shoulders bumping together. A little bit of support that comforted him enough to bring his noodles into his mouth. "You only have like, what, three years of difference?"

"Something like that, yeah," Chanyeol nodded.

"That’s actually not much," Baekhyun said and he sounded so sure of himself without making Chanyeol feel like his insecurities were stupid. He’d missed that. "And I just know you’re not gonna be the only person who changed life paths and found themselves in those classes a bit later than most. It’ll be okay."

Chanyeol hummed, not saying anything else. Just listening as he chewed on his food and looked at the black screen on the TV. He was right. He hadn’t thought about that, for some reason.

Baekhyun pressed his shoulder against his and lowered his voice. "Also you’re probably gonna be the class clown so everyone will love you and your stupid jokes," he said, tone quiet but fizzy with amusement.

Chanyeol laughed and pushed him by the shoulder. "My jokes aren’t more stupid than you are and you always laugh at them."

"I do thin k you’re a funny man. And also hot. And also smart," Baekhyun said, smiling, eyelashes shadowing his bright gaze as he looked down at his food."And also many other things but if I start making a list now I’ll never finish my food."

Chanyeol snorted, shaking his head. "Thanks," he said, lightly, but he meant it. Not for the compliments, but for the reassurance.

They ate in silence for a short moment, Chanyeol was still a bit worried but now he knew that there was no reason things wouldn’t get well. He’d just need to think about racing a little more and see which way he wanted to go in that area.

"You’re seeing your friends tonight, right?" Chanyeol asked after some time, chopsticks seeking for a piece of broccoli amidst his noodles and the rest of the vegetables.

Baekhyun hummed, put his box down to pull out his phone from his pocket and check the time.

"In an hour or so yeah," he said, putting his phone down to grab his food again. "Sooyoung arrived here last night so we’ll just hang out and I’ll also show her where the garage will be."

Chanyeol hummed.They’d talked about that yesterday already. Sooyoung was one of those friends he’d seen a lot on Baekhyun’s Instagram page. When Chanyeol had told him it felt weird not to know his friends for once, Baekhyun had said they could all hang out together sometimes but Chanyeol preferred not rushing into things.

He liked taking his time with Baekhyun, at least this time.

His gaze laid on Baekhyun’s phone. He was a little sad not to spend the entire evening with Baekhyun but at least he’d wanted to eat dinner together before he met his friends. That wasn’t much at all, maybe, but it still pleased Chanyeol.

However, he didn’t complain because he wanted things to go a bit differently this time. Much more differently than a year ago.

A year ago, Chanyeol would just go along with Baekhyun. A year ago, he’d be thinking about Baekhyun the entire time he was away and hang onto his phone for a text message and send one himself if he didn’t get one. A year ago, Baekhyun would’ve done the same thing if the roles were inverted.

"I won’t text you while you’re with your friends," he said, looking at Baekhyun reach for his glass of water.

Baekhyun furrowed his eyebrows, stared at him over the rim of his glass. "Why?" he asked, putting the glass back down. He stopped eating to focus on Chanyeol.

"I always texted you the entire time you were out before," Chanyeol said, before shaking his head. "I mean. That’s what we both did whenever either one of us was out and we weren’t there. I think we shouldn’t do that kind of thing. It’s probably not great."

It was probably one of the reasons why they were so caught up in each other, because even they were apart, they really weren’t.

Baekhyun nodded, putting his box down along with his chopsticks. He always took breaks in the midst of eating, to make up for the insane pace with which he wolfed down his food.

"I used to do that to you too, yeah," he said, looking down at the table, gaze blurry as if he were looking into the past and not what was in front of him. Then he scrunched his face. "You’re right. Maybe that was too much. And also a bit disrespectful to our friends?" He turned to Chanyeol, continued speaking when Chanyeol hummed his agreement. "When we’re with other people, let’s just be with other people."

"I think that’s better, yeah," Chanyeol said, satisfaction flooding over him.

They _could_ talk about what was wrong, calmly, clearly, and find a solution together.

"Maybe we could just text each other from time to time if we feel like it but not hold an actual conversation back and forth," Baekhyun said, smiling at the end of his words when Chanyeol made a little surprised sound as a piece of chicken dropped from his chopsticks and splattered back inside the box.

"You’re right," Chanyeol agreed, looking up to think about it. "If we have something to say to each other, let’s just text it. I don’t think it would be pleasant to completely hold back either."

"Yeah," Baekhyun nodded and he was still smiling. Chanyeol didn’t know why. He wondered if it was just because he was glad to talk about this. Then, the smile turned teasing and Chanyeol’s heart succumbed to its beauty. "If you somehow break something in the house, I wanna know all about it the minute it happens to make fun of you properly."

Chanyeol made a face at him and stole a piece of chicken from his food as revenge. Baekhyun protested loudly and moved to do the same but Chanyeol pulled his food away and held it protectively against his chest.

In the end, he still let Baekhyun steal back from his food. Just because it felt so good to actually work together on a problem in their relationship. So good, Chanyeol could probably give his food to whoever asked. But he still preferred making only Baekhyun happy with it.

"Can I in inherit your car?"

Chanyeol gave Sehun a long look before letting out a huffy laugh perfumed with the most believable condescendance he could pull out of himself.

"Aren’t you supposed to convince me not to quit our team?" Chanyeol replied, leaning against the wall as he waited for Sehun to finish getting ready.

They’d decided to go on a hike today. Chanyeol didn’t particularly ever feel the need to tire himself out by waking long distances and climbing hills, but if a friend asked him to come along on an adventure, he’d never say no.

"Nah," Sehun said, reaching for his toothbrush. The bathroom lights were too bright for Chanyeol’s eyes so he stepped back, leaning against the doorframe instead. "This is your decision. You just do whatever you want." He stopped, tilting his head and looking at Chanyeol through his reflection on the dirty mirror. Sehun never cleaned those. "Do you even know what you want though?"

There was pressure or judgement in those words, Chanyeol could see that Sehun was just curious about it. Which was normal, it did involve him a little. If Chanyeol stopped racing then there would be only him and Jongdae left in their original team.

Chanyeol had thought about it a little, after their conversation with Baekhyun.

"I think I won’t entirely give up on racing," he started, shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts. "But I’ll stay away from it for a few weeks when school starts, just to make sure I can be focused."

"And after that?" Sehun asked, words foamed up as he started brushing his teeth.

Chanyeol raised his shoulders a little bit and dropped them again, body swinging along.

"After that, I’ll race from time to time maybe," he said, not wanting to promise anything but knowing that he loved the thrill too much to stay off entirely. "And if you guys go on a drive around the city or I don’t know, want to go for a drift, I’ll come along on the weekends."

"Like Jongdae," Sehun noted, spitting in the sink and starting to rinse his mouth.

"Exactly," he hummed, looking at the basket full of dirty laundry. Maybe he should nag at Sehun to do his laundry sometimes. "If he can do it there,’s not reason I can’t. I’ll race one last time this weekend and then lay low for a while."

Jongdae had started seriously focusing on his job a few months ago. He’d been much less present in the racing scene ever since but that didn’t mean he’d disappeared. He’d found the perfect balance that suited him and maybe Chanyeol could do so either.

Moreover, it wasn’t the end of the world. If he missed racing too much, he could just do it. Nothing was set in stone, he could adjust to things the way he wanted to.

"I’m a bit relieved then," Sehun said, stepping closer to Chanyeol to dry his hands and face on the towel hung next to the door. "When you first talked about this months ago, I thought you’d want to drop racing entirely. Which I would understand, but I’d miss you too much in there."

He said that with furrowed eyebrows and a youthful tone to his voice. Chanyeol chuckled and raised his hand to ruffle his hair.

"I wouldn’t give you up," he said, before narrowing his eyes and dropping his hand. "And if you think saying these cute things gives you a bigger change of ever driving my car, you’re wrong."

Sehun looked skyward, opening his mouth in an expression of exasperation.

"Can’t even be sweet and loving to your friends in here."

"Think about doing your laundry more instead of thinking about adorable things to tell me," Chanyeol retorted, gesturing to the overflowing basket.

"Alright, I’m ready to leave," Sehun instantly said, ignoring the remark and leaving the bathroom while shaking the remaining water out of his hands.

Chanyeol chortled, shaking his head as he followed along.

"And then I need to look for a a few people to hire," Baekhyun said, accidentally bumping into Chanyeol’s shoulder as they walked along the sidewalk. "I was thinking of hiring just one person or two as mechanics because as much as I know about that area, it’s probably not enough."

He often did this, couldn’t focus on two things at the same time especially when he was talking. Chanyeol always had to pull him away from the road or watch for any car or people around, just because Baekhyun’s perception of everything around him dimmed a little whenever he was talking.

Especially when he was this excited about something.

"People could come to buy or sell cars but also to get things fixed if needed," he said, gesturing wildly with his hands to illustrate his words. With every brush of his fingers into the air, little drops of joy permeated around. This made Baekhyun so much happy.

"There’s no other garage in that area, is there?" Chanyeol asked, steering closer to Baekhyun as someone power walked past them.

He hadn’t seen any, at least, when Baekhyun had taken him on adrive around the garage two days ago.

"Yeah, there isn’t," Baekhyun said, nodding in agreement. "The most difficult part’s gonna be driving all the cars I own here though. I think I’ll just hire another garage to do it so it’ll take just one trip and I’ll save up on gas money."

Chanyeol liked this. he liked the way he felt included in this even if he hadn’t been here for most of the process of Baekhyun building his own business. He knew Baekhyun had worked small jobs a lot in the past year to save money, knew he’d taken a loan and was a bit stressed out about it even if his parents were backing him up and there was nothing to fear.

The sound of high heels clicking on cobblestones jolted behind them, rhyming along their own walk. The convenience store they were walking to from Baekhyun’s apartment was just around the corner. They’d never been together, but Chanyeol knew the area pretty well.

"I have a friend who could help you with that, I could talk him into reducing the price just a little bit if you want to," he said before looking down when his phone vibrated in his back-pocket just as they headed to the store’s entrance.

He pulled out the device as he heard Baekhyun apologize next to him to the young man sitting next to the doors. Chanyeol twisted his mouth. He didn’t have any cash to give out either. Then, he furrowed his eyebrows at the notification.

"What’s wrong?" Baekhyun asked as he grabbed a basket from the entrance so they could stock everything they grabbed from the aisles inside.

Chanyeol shook his head and slid his phone back into his pocket. "Some girl just messaged me to ask if we could meet up some time. Weird."

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows. "You know her?"

"I think I’ve seen her around at the races but I’m not sure," Chanyeol said, looking around as they walked into the vegetables aisles.

Baekhyun hummed, studying the zucchini for a bit too long. Chanyeol huffed an amused breath and reached to chose one himself.

"Looks like you still have some growing up to do when it comes to vegetables and cooking," he teased the other and when all Baekhyun did was stare at him with a honed gaze, Chanyeol felt his skin blaze up.

He wished they were alone, so he could kiss him and soak himself in the fieriness he emitted.

But they weren’t. Instead, Chanyeol grabbed a perfect-looking zucchini and put it in the basket hung on Baekhyun’s forearm.

They moved on to the tomatoes, Chanyeol hummed while studying them.

"You’re not replying to her then?" Baekhyun asked before pointing at the corner with cherry tomatoes. "I love those."

"I’ll tell her that I’m already taken when we get home later," Chanyeol replied as he reached for the pack of cherry tomatoes that looked the fullest.

When he heard Baekhyun laugh a little, he turned to him, confusion slowing his motions.

"What?" he asked, word curved into a smile along his mouth.

Laughing suited Baekhyun so much. Anything suited him. But this, the amusement tugging his lips up and reducing his eyes into carefree glimmers was maybe one of the things about him that made Chanyeol’s heart sink into itself the most.

"I just thought back on the one time the same exact thing happened and we fought about it so bad," he explained, shaking his head as he grabbed Chanyeol by the waist and pulled him along to walk.

Chanyeol remembered. It had been a boy that one time, a complete stranger. They’d been in Baekhyun’s bed. Baekhyun had screamed and stormed out of his own house back then. Chanyeol hadn’t even done anything, hadn’t even replied to that person yet when the fight had sparked off.

They stopped walking when someone almost ran into them with a cart. Baekhyun frowned but Chanyeol ignored it.

"Yeah, I remember that. You’re pretty possessive," he said as he led them to the toiletries aisles. He didn’t have toothpaste anymore at home so might as well just buy it now even if he would spend the night at Baekhyun’s.

"That’s because you used to make me jealous on purpose," Baekyun snorted and when Chanyeol looked at him, the smile was gone from his face.

Chanyeol’s features matched as they stood in front of the soap section, stopped in their tracks.

"Why would you say that?" he said, looking at him, a bit offended. "I never did any of that on purpose."

Chanyeol had a lot of faults and he’d done things he wasn’t proud of but how could it ever be his fault if people messaged him out of nowhere on social media?

And so they stood there. Baekhyun didn’t say anything. They just looked at each other through the barriers of annoyance in their eyes. Matching barriers on both of them.

Baekhyun looked away, closed his eyes, and demolished his. "Why are we even talking about this?" he mumbled, annoyance washed off into something lighter, much less violent. "Let’s not do this."

Chanyeol felt the tension that had suddenly gathered in his stomach loosen a little. He started walking again. Baekhyun followed.

They remained silent. Chanyeol studied the different toothpaste options for way too long.

Then, he sighed and grabbed one.

"Okay, maybe you’re right," he ended up saying, although there was no animosity or offense in his voice this time. "There were some things I did on purpose back then. Unconsciously or not. I can be asshole," he admitted with a wince that he concealed by finally, finally reaching to grab the toothpaste he always used.

Baekhyun huffed an air of lightness out. "I also think I was just very insecure about myself back then. I overreacted and never tried to listen or understand. Now, I don’t care about that kind of thing as much though," he said, nodding towards Chanyeol’s pocket, where his phone was. "I know you only want me."

Chanyeol threw his head back into an abrupt kind of laugh, short and surprised. He didn’t even deny it, didn’t even retaliate when he saw the victorious edges of Baekhyun’s eyes.

"I’m proud of you for not yelling at me for no reason," he teased the other backthough, reaching to ruffle his hair. It was soft under his palm but the stare Baekhyun gave him while chewing on the corner of his lip felt anything but soft on Chanyeol’s skin. It lit every part of him up. He dropped his hand and smiled. "Hey, I think this works."

"What?" Baekhyun asked, tilting his head and stepping closer to Chanyeol to let an old lady pass by him and venture further into the aisle. "Staying silent at the beginning of a fight?"

"Yeah," Chanyeol snorted, shaking his head in amusement. "That way the fight doesn’t actually happen and then we can talk about it normally."

"Yeah," Baekhyun said, furrowing his eyebrows and stretching that word. "Telling ourselves to shut up instead of telling it to each other might be a good method."

Chanyeol grinned, closing his eyes for longer than a blink. When he opened them again, Baekhyun was leaning closer to him.

"What else do you need to cook me something good enough to convince me to kiss you?"

Sparkly eyes, dynamite smile. Chanyeol felt the explosions inside of his heart, soothed by a wave of endearment right behind.

"Oh so you won’t kiss me if the food isn’t good?" he asked, raising his eyebrows to play along with the other.

"Exactly," Baekhyun said, raising his nose just a tad with an air of defiance.

"What makes you think I’ll allow that?" Chanyeol asked and before Baekhyun could say anything he stole a peck from him, a quick kiss that was enough to engulf his entire body in a jolt of warmth.

When he turned away to change aisles, he heard Baekhyun scoffing behind him. He waited a moment and then ran up to Chanyeol to catch up. Their shoulders bumped together and Chanyeol didn’t know how it was possible for someone to turn a mere, beat up convenience store into a tiny bubble of happiness.

Somewhere on a road Chanyeol and Baekhyun chose to drive through together, Chanyeol was sitting on the passenger’s side of his own car, basking on a seat of contentment.

He’d just won his last race. It had been his last race for probably a long time and he’d won it. His heart was still soaring in the highest of heights.

Because of the flashing streetlights. Because of the cheers and the support and the encouraging words from everyone who’d attended. Because he’d raced against his closest friends and his blood had rushed with joy through it all. Because Baekhyun had been right next to him in the car, laughing and singing and fueling Chanyeol to victory better than anything or anyone else.

His fingers still twitched with the crumbles of adrenaline left in his body.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath in until he felt like he could fly if he wanted to, then let it out again. The song drawling through the car changed to heavier, slower beat. His eyes opened and he turned his head to Baekhyun. The lights flashed through the window on Baekhyun’s left, headlights, street signs, the red of stop signs, and the neons of happy places all around the city.

But this was the happiest place. Because Baekhyun glanced at him with a calm settlement in his smile. Because Chanyeol felt like Baekhyun drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other suffocating his heart and cajoling it all at the same time. He didn’t even have to touch Chanyeol to have that hold over his heart. He’d always been able to make whatever he wanted out of Chanyeol’s heart, even from hours away. Chanyeol had lived it before.

But he wouldn’t live it again. He wouldn’t live _that_. He would live this in a better way for both of them. He’d only let himself live Baekhyun.

And living Baekhyun, even though it caused some pain sometimes, even though it was like dropping a match into a puddle of gasoline, it still had a beautiful ending to it. It still bloomed a fire that lit up whatever place Chanyeol laid his eyes on.

It still was a fire that soared high, dangerously high, higher than the most destructive crashes of the ocean, but Chanyeol had never felt as good as he did when he let that feeling consume him. It never came down, never calmed. At this point in time, Chanyeol thought that maybe those emotions would never dry up, never dim down.

And it had been hard to adjust to it. To work for it, at first. But they could do it. They would do it together, for each other but also for themselves, as individuals. And for that feeling that kept tiding them together.

Chanyeol had found himself somewhere in it. Baekhyun had found himself somewhere in it.

He didn’t know exactly where that fire would lead them yet, but Chanyeol knew he would always end somewhere between them.


End file.
